War De^yartMcnl 



malaria: 

AN ESSAY 

O.V THE 

PRODUCTION AND PROPAGATION 

OF THIS POISON, 

AND ON THE 

NATURE AND LOCALITIES OF THE PLACES 

BY WHICH IT IS PRODUCED: 

WITH AN 

ENUMERATION OF THE DISEASES CAUSED BY IT, 

AND OF THE 

MEANS OF PREVENTING OR DIMINISHING THEM, 

BOTH AT HOME AND IN THE NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICE. 



BY JOHN MACCULLOCH, M.D., F.R.S., &c. &c. 

PHYSICIAN IN ORDINARY TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE 
LEOPOLD OF SAXE COBOURG. 



LONDON: 

PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN. 



MDCCCXXVII. 



J- 



PRINTED BY J. TEUTEN, 
BERWICK STREET, OXFORD STREET. 



BY TRANSFER 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The present volume has, in conformity to the advice of better 
judges than the author, been separated from two subsequent 
ones containing the history of the diseases, of a remittent 
and intermittent nature, which are admitted to be the produce, 
chiefly, of Malaria. Those two volumes, which will shortly 
appear, will be found to comprise an account, generically, of 
marsh fever and of Neuralgia ; one volume having been allotted 
to each : the former including an account of numerous dis- 
orders dependent on intermittent or remittent, the characters 
and treatment of which have been often misapprehended, 
while the latter, under a new and generic view, connects Neu- 
ralgia, in all its forms, with intermittent : treating of various 
diseases, original or consequential, which appertain to this as 
a generic affection, and pointing out a systematic plan of cuie 
for the whole of a train of disorders, of the most distressing 
and refractory nature. 

It has necessarily followed, that in the present Essay, or 
Volume, there is a deficiency of illustration as to the disorders 
in question, since it is chiefly trusted to the medical ones ; but 
to have altered this, would have caused repetitions which would 
have enlarged the bulk, and increased the expence, to at least 
the medical readers. To them it will therefore be a work of 
three volumes while the present part remains an essay in 
one, for those who, as travellers, or as residents in unhealthy 
districts, or from whatever other causes, may possess an in- 
terest in a subject of this nature, which they could not be ex- 
pected to take in a medical treatise, however popular the sub- 
ject, and however it has been endeavoured to render it intelli- 
gible, as well as interesting, to every class of readers. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. 

Introductory remarks on the effects of Malaria, and on 
tTie utility of a hnoivledge of that subject. - - 1 

Chapter II. 

Nature of the evidences respecting the production of 
Malaria in situations of a less notorious or acknow- 
ledged character. - - - - - - 15 

Chapter III. 

Of the soils and situations which most commonly produce 
Malaria. - -------35 

Chapter IV. 

Of the soils and situations less conspicuously productive of 
Malaria or as yet unsuspected of it^ - - - 52 

Chapter V. 

On certain obscure or disputed cases relating to the pro- 
duction of Malaria, ------ 132 

Chapter VI. 

On revolutions and changes ivhich take place with regard 
to the production of Malaria, ivhether from natural 
causes or from artificial sanitary measures. - - 177 



Vi CONTENTS. 

Chapter V^II. 

On the propagation of Malaria, - - - - 212 

Ghapteii VIII. 

On the climates and seasons peculiarly favourable to the 
production and propagation, or the effects of Malaria. 337 

Chapter IX. 

On the Geography of Malaria. ... - 3(J5 

Chapter X. 

On the Nature of Malaria - - ~ ~ - 419 
Chapter XI. 

On the general effects of Malaria upon the constitutions 
of the inhabitants of marshy districts, and on the dis- 
eases which seem to be produced by it. - - - 428 



ERRATA. 



Page 2"^, line 8, /or observations, observation. 
— — 25, — 14, /or their, r. that. 
— — 28, — 3 from bottom, /or this, r. the. 
33, — 14, dele even. 

54, — 8 from bottom, /or exciting, exhibiting^. 

— ' — 65, — \ifor no, r. not, 

159, — 8, /or allow, r. allows. 

162, — 10, /or as, r. us. 

— — 165, — 17, /or Serivus, r. Servius. 
168, — 10, /or now, r. how. 

■ 295, — 3 from bottom, /or dimished, r. diminished. 

388, — 5, /or Cephallonia, r. Cephalonia. 

409, ^ 8, /or emigrants, r. immigrants. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory remarks on the effects of Malaria^and 
on the utility of. a knowledge of that subject. 

It has long been familiar to physicians that there 
was produced by wet lands, or by marshes and 
swamps, a poisonous and aeriform substance, the 
cause, not only of ordinary fevers, but of inter- 
mittents ; and to this unknown agent of disease 
the term marsh miasma has been applied. Nor 
is such knowledge confined to physic. Through- 
out the world it is a fact known to the vulgar, 
and even to less enlightened nations ; familiar 
to the Negroes of Africa, familiar to the lower 
orders of France, Italy, Holland, and elsewhere, 
and not less known to at least our own rural 
population occupying districts of this character ; 
since every labourer in Lincolnshire or Essex 
believes that his ague is the produce of his fens, 
if neither he nor his physician is so well aware, 
as both ought to be, that his common fever of 
summer or autumn has the same source, and if 
neither inquire, with sufficient care, where this 

B 



2 



MALARIA. 



pernicious land is present^ and this poisonous 
substance generated. 

This is the unseen, and still unknown, poison 
to which Italy applies the term that i h a Ye uor^" 
rowed, Malaria. This is the cause of fevers, 
both ordinary and intermitting ; but it is the 
cause also of other disorders, scarcely less im- 
portant in point of numbers and of mortal power. 
Such are dysentery and cholera ; and yet all these 
united form but one portion of the enormous- 
mass of disease^ of suffering, and of mortality 
dependent on this single cause. 

Of this I shall hereafter give the most ample 
demonstration : since I trust that I shall be able 
to trace to this great source of evil a large pro- 
portion out of the whole of the chronic disorders 
which are the causes of such extensive suffering 
and wide inconvenience ; while it is already 
known that there are some dependent on this 
cause, which occasionally terminate in lingering 
and protracted death. Still further, I think that 
I shall be able to prove it a widely acting cause 
of what are called nervous disorders ; the most 
-common, probably the chief, source of the most 
painful diseases to which mankind is subject, of 
which one at least is familiar under the term tic 
douloureux; andj lastly^ the far most frequent 



MALARIA. 



3 



source of those innumerable ailings called^ in the 
ordinary language of society, ill. health, by which 
are especially persecuted those who inhabit cer- 
tain situations in our own country, as in many 
others. 

How widely Malaria is a cause of deaths will 
be apparent almost on a moment's consideration, 
when we recollect, that in all the warmer, and 
thence more populous, countries, nearly the en- 
tire mortality is the produce of fevers, and these 
fevers the produce of Malaria. I have said else- 
where, that it has been estimated to produce one- 
half of the entire mortahty of the human race; 
nor do I think that this computation, made by 
physicians of care and consideration, has been 
exaggerated. If in our own more fortunate cli- 
mate it is less destructive, it is far more so than 
is commonly imagined ; since, of those who die 
from fevers, it may safely be asserted, that more 
than nine in ten perish from the fevers of this 
class, too generally confounded with the conta- 
gious disorder of the same name, under the term 
Typhus. And if the deaths produced in England 
by fevers, in this present season alone, 1826, be 
examined, if I could name a single parish, and 
that not a peculiarly unwholesome district^, where, 
in a population of sixteen hundred, the mortality, 

B 2 



4 



MALARIA. 



in two months^, was one in thirteen^ we have 
surely abundant reason, if far less than our neigh- 
bours of France^ Holland^ and Italy^ to take an 
interest in the cause of such diseases, had we 
even no other motive ; and the more particularly 
if^ by an accurate knowledge of the cause, we 
can avert its power^ or diminish its influence^, and 
thus reduce this heavy account of human suffer- 
ing, with all its complicated consequences. 

But if^ from having heard this term habitually 
coupled with the name of Italy, from erroneous 
views of the nature and causes of the fevers \\4iich 
I have here noticed, and from similarly mistaken 
ones respecting a vast body of other disorders, 
there are persons who imagine that England is 
by nature exempt from this scourge, let them 
return to its statistical and medical history for 
two centuries past, and then see what Avas the 
mortality, not merely of England generally, but 
even of London, from this cause, Malaria. That 
a King of England should now die of a marsh 
fever, and that such a cause of death should ex- 
cite no particular surprise, is an opinion not to 
be entertained for an instant. Yet thus died 
Cromwell, one among hundreds ; the death in- 
deed not without note, but its cause not esteemed 
out of the ordinary course of mortality. Far 



MALARIA. 



5 



otherwise, indeed, would such an event be judged 
now ; yet that which has been diminished, has 
not been extirpated. True ; England is com- 
paratively freed from this plague, and it has been 
freed from it by industry and attention ; but it is 
not yet exempt ; nor are we exempted from the 
further exertion of that attention to which it is 
owing that the fens of Lincoln are not the rivals 
in deadliness of Walcheren, and that Romney is 
not what are the Pontine marshes. But know- 
ledge must precede industry and care ; and know- 
ledge also must teach us to prevent or diminish 
the evils where their cause is beyond our powers. 
Such knowledge it is the object of this essay to 
extend, or rather to teach ; since, however once 
known, it appears to have been nearly forgotten, 
though never indeed understood as it ought to 
have been. 

But if we will not be yet persuaded to look 
about us at home, let us look abroad, and not 
even to the tropical regions, but to France, and 
Spain, and Holland, and Greece, and Italy, and 
then ask ourselves whether the subject before us 
is not a subject of interest. The value of life, 
of survivorship, the average chance of approach- 
ing to the proverbial limit of threescore and ten, 
is the measure of the salubrity of a country, and 



6 



MALARIA. 



tliat salubrity depends mainly on the presence or 
absence^ tlie range or the limitation^ of Malaria. 
We may take the average of life among our- 
selves;, in round numbers^, at fifty, with sufficient 
safety for this purpose. In Holland it is twenty- 
five ; the half of human life is cut off at one 
blow, and the executioner is Malaria ; for there 
is no other cause for the superior mortality of 
that country. But there are districts in France 
where it is but twenty-tvv o, twenty, eighteen ; so 
little is the chance oi life ; while all the instru- 
ments by which Death executes his office, are 
here superseded by one, by that one which ren- 
ders all others unnecessary, which has monopo- 
lized the functions of the whole dark catalogue — 
Malaria. Let us turn to Italy : the fairest por- 
tions of this fair land are a prey to this invisible 
enemy, its fragrant breezes are poison, the dews 
of its summer evenings are death. The banks 
of its refreshing streams, its rich and flowery 
meadows, the borders of its glassy lakes, the 
luxuriant plains of its overflowing agriculture, 
the valley where its aromatic shrubs regale the 
eye and perfume the air, these are the chosen 
seats of this plague, the throne of Malaria. 
DccUh here walks hand in hand with the sources 
of life, sparing none : the labourer reaps his liar- 



MALARIA. 



7 



vest but to die, or he wanders amid the luxu- 
riance of vegetation and wealth, the ghost of 
man, a sufferer from his cradle to his impending 
grave ; aged even in childhood^ and laying down 
in misery that life which was but one disease. 
He is even driven from some of the richest por- 
tions of this fertile yet unhappy country ; and 
the traveller contemplates at a distance deserts, 
but deserts of vegetable wealth, which man dares 
not approach, — or he dies. 

Nor do even his houses and towns afford him 
a shelter agpjnst this all-pervading pestilence. 
It enters with him into his chambers, and stalks 
through his streets. Imperial Rome herself is 
its chosen victim : man flies before it, but the 
enemy is behind him and around him on all sides : 
every day sees the dominions of death extended, 
and the hour is impending when the Eternal City 
will cease to be, when it shall submit to that 
fate, which has been the fate of proud Nineveh, 
and Babylon the queen of nations. 

Such also is Sicily, such Sardinia, and such is 
classic Greece. To live a living death, to be cut 
off from more than half of even that life, to be 
placed in the midst of wealth and enjoyment, 
yet not to enjoy, such is the fate of man in the 
lands of Europe where Malaria holds its chief 



8 



MALARIA. 



seat ; while in the tropical regions, it is to fall 
by thousands and tens of thousands, the summer 
harvest of death walking hand in hand with that 
of the vegetable world. 

True ; from thus much we are free ; and we 
may be grateful for a security, purchased, as it 
is, by an uiigenial climate, and a soil less pro- 
ductive. But I shall soon show that our exemp- 
tion is far less perfect than we flatter ourselves ; 
that we too suffer, and that we suffer from much 
which we might remedy or avoid. But can we 
forget that we also suffer with Italy and with 
Greece, with Africa and the West and the East, 
with the entire world ? As travellers, as resi- 
dents, as warriors, as colonists, we partake with 
all ; and as they suffer, so do we. Let residents, 
let travellers, let colonists say if it be not so. 
War at least cannot forget what it suffers, what 
it has suffered, from this cause ; from that Ma- 
laria of which it is too often ignorant, which, 
too often it thinks fit to despise. If the sword 
has slain its thousands, the Malaria has slain its 
tens of thousands. It is disease, not the field of 
action, which digs the grave of armies ; it is 
Malaria by which the burning spirit, fitted for 
better things, is quenched, and in the coward's 
bed of death. This is the Destroying Angel, the 



MALARIA. 9 

real pestilence which walks at noon day ; and 
to which all the other causes of mortality are 
but as feeble auxiliaries in the work of destruc- 
tion. This is Malaria, the neglected subject to 
which I am desirous of calling attention, that, 
by this, its powers may be diminished : Malaria, 
from which even ourselves, here in England, are 
not free, though, from ignorance, unaware of it, 
or, from unwillingness to receive conviction, 
shutting our eyes to the truth. 

What other causes may here act in producing 
this incredulity, let others say ; yet let me make 
one remark at least, while the explanation I will 
as gladly leave to others. 

It is a characteristic moral feature of those 
who reside in such unhealthy situations in 
France, and a fact noticed by every one who has 
examined those districts, to deny strenuously the 
existence of danger ; and to maintain that neither 
the soil which they inhabit, nor the air in which 
they die rather than live, nor their modes of life 
or labour, are unwholesome. Always ready, 
and even ingenious, in excusing the place of their 
nativity or residence, they invent any other cause 
for their diseases, rather than confess or believe 
in the true one ; and are even indignant at those 
who would attempt to convince them, as if that 
were a reproach and a calumny. This is not the 



10 



MALARIA. 



feeling of Italy, it is true, more eniigliteried on 
this subject, or at least it is a rare one ; but it is 
a very general one in Holland, as to wliicli 
country it will perhaps excite a smile in parti- 
cular, to know that the people of Walcheren 
repelled with no small indignation, at the time 
of the celebrated vi^it of our troops, the cliarge 
of unhealthiness which was brought against their 
beloved birtli-Dlace. 

Nor is it less true of our own country, as I 
have said, if under some diiFerence of aspect and 
manner, perhaps, also, under some difference of 
feelings, if ignorance cannot see, vanity, habit, 
unwillingness to learn, or whatever else, sup- 
porting themselves also on the general ignorance 
of the mass of practitioners, is ever ready to 
deny the presence of Malaria in the indicated 
place, as it equally refuses to believe that any 
disorder, which is not a vulgar " ague," in its 
most vulgar sense, can be the produce of this 
cause. Far steadier is this obstinacy when the 
place in question is not a marsh, since beyond a 
term do vulgar minds never reach ; while, should 
it be a fish-pond, or the somewhat higher pre- 
tence, of the same nature, with which they who 
imagine themselves gifted with taste have pro- 
jected to emulate nature, the clamour or con- 
tempt become rivals of tlu^ obstinapy, and the 



MALARIA. 



11 



naturalist, who would demonstrate tlie icleutity, 
must be silent or yield — becaase marsliy ground 
is not a marsh. 

That v/hat is popularly called a marsh is not 
necessary to the production of Malaria^ is what 
I mean to show, and^ I trust, to proYe, in this 
essay ; to prove that the causes of Malaria exist 
under numerous circumstances, not at all su- 
spected, in our own country, and in thousands, 
tens of thousands, of places, even at our very 
doors. That it produces on the inhabitants, and 
from these very sources, the same general effects 
as it does in Italy or France, is what 1 also hope 
to prove ; as I shall further show that its casual 
effects are the same, in the production of marked 
diseases, and that the fevers of our own island 
are, very predominantly, the marsh or remittent 
fever of the countries most subject to this plague, 
though inferior in severity. Thus, also, in the 
mediced part of this work, or in the future 
volumes, if I shall prove that it is a frequent, if 
not the exclusive, cause of a variety of torment- 
ing, painful, and dangerous disorders, as also of 
w^hat is called ill health, very widely, I trust that 
it will no longer be a subject of doubt, still less 
of contempt ; and that the consequence will be 
a considerable diioiuiition of the evils which are 



12 



MALARIA. 



produced by this plague^ and by the soils or situ- 
ations in which it is generated. 

This is the useful end^ and the object in viev/ ; 
correction of the cause^ or^ if that be impossible, 
avoidance. To know the exciting cause of a 
dis^ease, is the first ?aid most important step in 
-practical medicine ; it is to be furnished with 
the means of preventing what, unfortunately, 
we cannot always cure ; pain which we cannot 
mitigate, or death which we cannot prevent. 
Avoidance is prevention, and, to a large extent, 
it is effectual. Better still is the abolition of the 
cause ; but neither end can be gained, until our 
knowledge is accurate and complete. 

And if Malaria is that cause which I shall 
prove it to be, of diseases numerically, and of 
instances of disease arithmetically, to an enormous 
and little suspected amount, then must this essay, 
if it be as true as I conceive it to be, become an 
auxiliary to practical medicine, of an importance 
not less, at least, than would be a new and effec- 
tual mode of curing these disorders, including, 
as they do, some of the most deadly, as well as 
the most refractory, to which mankind is subject. 
And if tlius, by prevention, effecting more than 
even a method of cure could do, so is it to an 
accurate and minute knowledge of the causes, of 
the exact spot, and of every spot, productive of 



MALARIA. 



13 



Malaria, that we must often resort, even for the 
means of cure ; since it will be found, that the 
most obstinate of these disorders are rendered 
incurable by repeated but unsuspected applica- 
tions of the cause, so that the mere avoidance of 
that becomes the cure. 

And if this inquiry thus forms a necessary 
portion of the merely medical part of this work, 
not less will it prove useful to the people as a 
practical guide towards the avoidance of dis- 
eases, endless in variety of character as in variety 
of evil, and which, in the infinitely greater ma- 
jority of cases, are the produce of this very ig- 
norance ; of Vi^ant of knowledge, or want of 
suspicion, as to^ the existence or presence of 
Malaria. If they were thus taught but to avoid 
the fevers which, in most cases, are the produce 
of this ignorance, fevers which, in every sum- 
mer, are committing their ravages even in our 
towns, and which a very little caution would 
often prevent, it would be no small gain ; but 
when we add to this the endless list of other 
disorders, chronic or acute, the torments of en- 
tire families, or the cause of misery to individuals 
beyond numbering, the impediments to business 
and industry as to comfort and happiness, and 
all of these but too generally the consequences 
of similar ignorance, I cannot help thinking that 



14 



MALARIA. 



to spread such opinions as widely as possible, 
and to enforce them as strongly as possible, is a 
duty, and a duty which will not fail to be re- 
warded at least by some success, hereafter, if not 
at present ; while the only reward which has 
here been contemplated, is that success; the con- 
viction of having aided in diminisliing human 
suffering. 

1 must now proceed to describe the various facts 
which relate to the production and propagation of 
Malaria; but as I shall have to encounter abund- 
ance of incredulity or prejudice, it will be necessary 
to commence by stating the nature of the evidence 
as to the actual existence, in particular cases, of a 
poison, which is, from its very nature, invisible, 
which has hitherto entirely eluded all chemical 
investigation, and which can be detected only by 
its effects on the human body. This is a justice 
which is due to a reader ; since no one can or 
ought to be contented with the iliere assertions 
of individuals, however numerous or reputed, 
or whatever their own convictions may be ; and 
it is the more necessary to the reader of our own 
country, since, on a subject never before sub- 
mitted to an Bnglish public, it would be natural 
to expect, at least, both ignorance and incredu- 
lity, did we not even know that there were also 
prejudices in abundance to be surmounted. 



CHAPTER IL 



Nature of the evidences respecting the production 
of Malaria in situations of a less notorious or 
acknowledged character. 

It is admitted on all hands, that what is called a 
marsh or a swamp, is capable of producing fevers ; 
and, in our own country, this is more especially 
believed respecting the intermittent ones, or, as 
they are popularly termed, agues. This parti- 
cular class of causes, or localities, will require, 
therefore, no such proofs as 1 am here contem- 
plating, though they m.ust be included in the 
general enumeration. 

It is not so, however, with regard to all ; and 
in enumerating the less admitted sources of Ma- 
laria, I shall, therefore, be often compelled to 
resort to proofs of some delicacy, and to appeals 
to an experience for which, be it received as it 
may, I must be very often myself responsible. . 
It becomes, therefore, necessary, as a preliminary 
step, to state the reasons from experience, whence 
particular soils or qualities of land, many of 
which have hitherto been unsuspected, have been 



16 



EVIDENXES OF 



here judged productive of Malaria ; and where 
these observations have been mukipUed, as has 
here been the case, there is no reason why we 
should not generahze for the several causes of 
this less obvious nature, as has been done in the 
case of marshes. And if the generalization is 
not universally true, if exceptions shall be named, 
as they doubtless exist, it must be remembered, 
that this is no more than happens with regard to 
even the most notorious causes, marshes and 
jungles, and to these, even in tropical climates, 
as will be shown hereafter more particularly. 
In all cases of philosophy, exceptions occur, 
until we are masters of all the causes that pro- 
duce and influence an effect ; while, instead of 
proving the rule, as is commonly said, they 
prove that we do not know that rule ; and if 
there are exceptions in this particular case, it is 
no ground for surprise, ignorant as we in a great 
measure are, of the precise part or action of a 
soil which generates Malaria. 

It is a fundamental falacy in this case to limit 
our decision on the power of any soil or situation 
in the production of this poison, by the occur- 
rence of regular intermittent fever, or common 
ague ; and yet it is a leading and a common fal- 
lacy, in our own country, even among physicians. 



MALARIA. 



17 



The practitioners acquainted with hot countries 
know indeed perfectly well, that the common fever 
of summer and autumn, he its names what they 
may, is equally the produce and proof of Malaria; 
as this is also known to all physicians of reading, 
who have not had the advantage of similar expe- 
rience. To them it is equally known, that dy- 
sentery is produced by the same causes, while, at 
present, I need not extend this enumeration. 

But this is as far from being true of the mass 
of domestic, untravelled, and imperfectly edu- 
cated practitioners, as it is of the mass of the 
people themselves. With these, the fevers in 
question are most frequently called typhus, and, 
further, generally considered as contagious ; such 
is the laxity still prevailing, almost, 1 might say, 
universally, on this subject ; of which, if it were 
not disagreeable to recollect, and painful to recal 
to the minds of those in fault, one notorious in- 
stance, among innumerable others, not very dis- 
tant in time or place, and noted for its severe 
consequences, might be quoted ; while the term 
bilious fever, sometimes used by others, conveys 
ideas no further definite, particularly as the cause 
is generally sought in heat, cold, fatigue, fruit, 
even in plums and cherries specifically, and while 

c 



18 



EVIDENCES OF 



the autumnal dysentery is attributed to the same 
fanciful causes. 

Having, therefore, set aside this fallacy, the 
real conclusion to be drawn is, that wherever re- 
mitting fevers, or fevers of whatever nature that 
are not contagious, as well as dysenteries (to say 
nothing at present of other diseases less com- 
monly attributed to this cause), are produced, the 
proof of summer Malaria is as complete as if 
the same soils had, in spring, produced ague ; 
or, generally, that as the same soil, in different 
seasons, or under different circumstances, produces 
both kinds of disease, or the different species of 
one genus, while both are mutually interchange- 
able, so the occurrence of any species at any sea- 
son, is a proof that the situation is productive of 
Malaria. 

Now, to apply this to the desired proof, as to 
the poisonous quality of unsuspected situations, 
it will be found by any careful observer, that 
there are certain determinate places, where never- 
theless no marshes are present, in which there 
are annually, or generally, fevers produced or 
existing, while others, even in the immediate vi- 
cinity, are exempt ; and, in these places, a careful 
inquirer will find that some one of the various 



MALARIA. 



19 



circumstances of soil shortly to be pointed out^ 
is present. 

Further, and to come to a more delicate and a 
scarcely observed species of proof as to the pre- 
sence of Malaria in certain situations, it is quite 
notorious that some places or soils are, in general 
terms, unhealthy ; a remark as familiar with the 
people at large as with medical practitioners. 
Thus it is a vulgar remark, that in certain houses 
or places, a family is rarely without some sick- 
ness ; or, to use the strong but coarse language 
in which it is generally stated, that the apothecary 
is never out of the house." It is almost equally 
familiar, that families, which had before been 
healthy, have become the reverse on changing 
houses or situations ; as, in the opposite cases, 
that they have recovered health by change of re- 
sidence. Of such facts as these, there is no ob- 
server who must not be able to recollect numerous 
examples. 

As may be expected, there is seldom any back- 
wardness in assigning causes for the unhealthiness 
of such places ; since the lowest of the ignorant 
are not less fond of causation, in their own way, 
than philosophy itself. Thus, to be damp, to be 
low, and so forth, are obvious physical facts, and 
easily accused as causes ; w hile medical men, w ith 

c 2 



20 



EVIDENCES OF 



an unpardonable carelessness^ or absence of rea- 
soning, too generally rest in the same vague and 
indefinite language^ satisfying themselves, as is 
too common, with words. Thus it also is, that 
we lind even those from whom we should expect 
more accuracy of thinking, concluding that a 
given situation or district is unhealthy, and even 
without asking themselves what are the diseases 
of this ill health, because the soil is clay ; or re- 
versely, healthy, because it "lies on a gravelly 
bottom," or ia a land of chalk ; concluding, when 
they do conclude at all, that clay is a pernicious 
substance, or resting in some vague and loose 
notions about moisture, cold, porosity, drainage, 
or what not. 

This is a pernicious laxity, both of thinking 
and phraseology, because it turns the attention 
from the real evil, and, preventing the discovery 
of the true causes, equally impedes that of the 
remedy. To anticipate, but no more than is here 
necessary, what must shortly be said on the sub - 
ject, if a gravelly soil is healthy, it is because its 
easy drainage prevents the growth of that parti- 
cular vegetation which is the cause of Malaria ; 
and if a clavey soil is the reverse, it is because, 
by lodging superhcial water, it generates, however 
partially, liiose marshy or undrained spots, or wet 



MALARIA. 



21 



woods^ or moist meadows^ which are the sources 
of this poison, and, consequently, of the various 
diseases confounded under the vague term un- 
healthiness But as there are cases without end 
where gravelly soils do contain spots generative 
of Malaria, while clayey soils are, over large 
tracts, often as dry, and therefore as healthy, as 
the most porous ones, it is plain that this laxity, 
both of observation and language, is in every way 
pernicious ; since, from not seeing the real cause, 
it can never be decided where health may reside 
or disease be produced. 

Now, to recur to this kind of " unhealthiness," 
as it is termed, attached to particular houses or 
situations, as affording evidence of the existence 
or generation of Malaria in places little suspected, 
or, rather, not at all suspected, and most generally 
denied, both by the inhabitants and their physi- 
cians, it will be found, on a rigid examination, 
that it consists very often in the occurrences of 
summer and autumnal fevers ; a case, we might 
suppose, sufficiently evincing the real cause, were 
it not for the almost universal laxity of opinion 
among medical practitioners respecting the nature 
and causes of these fevers. But whether decided 
or marked fevers occur or not, it is usual for the 
inhabitants of such places to suffer, almost per- 



22 



EVIDENCES OF 



ennialiy, or with periods more or less durable^ of 
tolerable health, from a vexatious and frequent 
recurrence of petty fevers, or of a general febrile 
state, very often referred to dyspepsia, to nervous 
ailments, or to any other convenient and fashion- 
able cause ; while this condition of the body, 
sometimes following decided and severe remit- 
tents, often occurs without them, producing that 
general and obscure continuance of ailment which 
is called ill health. 

An acute and unprejudiced observer, taking 
this view as his guide, may easily satisfy himself 
of the real nature of the " ill health " in the situ- 
ations now under review ; but he will also find 
that this does not constitute the whole of the dis- 
eases thus produced ; as, if he will review his 
own practice on such inhabitants, he will find 
dysentery, often, or generally, called diarrhoea, one 
of the prevailing ailments, and, perhaps, cholera ; 
together with headaches, periodical or irregular 
rheumatism of the face or head as it is called, tooth- 
ach, sciatica, with tic douloureux, or other varieties 
of neuralgia, bilious affections, as the phrase is, 
and a whole catalogue of all the nervous ailments 
which, at different periods, under different fashions, 
have been attributed to various causes ; to the 
nerves, the spleen, the stomach, the liver, and 



MALARIA. 



23 



now, as is a far more convenient phraseology, to 
the chylopoietic viscera. 

JEven if all these should be absent^ or if from 
fortitude^ carelessness, poverty, or from weariness 
or contempt of physic, persons who are thus ha- 
bitual and hopeless sufferers, should not give a 
physician all the opportunities of minute obser- 
vations which he might desire, he will be a bad 
observer if he does not discover in the sallow 
complexions, the languor, the irritable tempers, 
or the melancholy character of individuals thus 
unfortunately situated, that they are suffering 
under fixed derangements of the larger glandular 
viscera ; often of the liver, and perhaps much 
more frequently of the spleen. And should he 
have those opportunities of examination which 
severe diseases of this nature afford, he will be 
enabled to convince himself that this very species 
of disease, the noted produce of the places that 
notoriously generate Malaria in the hotter cli- 
mates, is also habitual to the similar situations in 
our own country, if under a less severe character ; 
and that it is one of the leading causes of that 
undefinable ill health peculiar to the situation of 
the patient, as it is, apparently, the great cause 
of so many distressing, nervous, and dyspeptic 
symptoms. 



EVIDENCES OF 



The whole condition, in fact, of a people so 
situated, as I have now sketched it, is precisely 
that of the inhabitants of the pestiferous districts 
of France, Italy, and elsew^here ; since in these, 
and independently of the noted epidemics, or the 
occasional severe or marked fevers, the population 
is, perennially, and even through life, subject to 
a whole catalogue of chronic ailments ; the only 
diiFerence being, that in our own far less un- 
wholesome districts of a similar character, these 
are less violent, and, also, commonly less peren- 
nial and less durable. 

Such are the evidences^ derived from the pro- 
duction of absolute disease, whence it is here 
judged that particular situations, often little su- 
spected, are productive of Malaria ; because that 
poison, where its generation can be demonstrated 
in the production of the acknowledged diseases 
of which it is the cause, produces all these ob- 
scurer diseases also, and because these situations 
do actually contain the same elements which con- 
stitute marshes or soils generative of this poison ; 
the difference consisting in nothing but slender 
modifications of form or distribution, or variations 
of dimension. 

But it must be added, also, as an unanswerable 
argument, "that these very spots are known to 



MALARIA. 



25 



produce the common intermittent ; and thus^ 
while they demonstrate their powers in generating 
Malaria, even to those who know of no test but 
this common one, they also aid in proving that 
all the concatenated diseases just enumerated de- 
pend on the same cause, occurring, as they do, in 
the same persons, often the sequel of intermit- 
tent or of remittent, and notoriously common in 
the situations in question, while rare in others. 
Unquestionably, the marked and regular intermit- 
tent is by no means necessary, nor, perhaps, even 
common, in these places ; but the force of the 
argument derived from it will not be injured by 
their exception. We are not bound to explain 
this, until we can also explain why intermittent is 
not always produced where remittent is generated, 
why certain countries abounding in the remittents of 
autumn do not produce the intermittent of spring, 
while the reverse is also not uncommon ; or why 
the rice fields of Bengal, if that be true, are not 
as poisonous as those of Lombardy. This is the 
misfortune of our ignorance at present ; and it is 
a difficulty that will not be solved till we become 
acquainted with the immediate nature of Malaria, 
or at least with the immediate chemical actions 
under which it is produced. 

It remains to mention one more ffict, and in 



26 



EVIDENCES OF 



the nature of a test^, if such a term may be used, 
by which the power of any given place in pro- 
ducing Malaria may be determined. Hereafter, 
chemistry, striding on as it does with such unex- 
ampled rapidity, mayj perhaps, put us into pos- 
session of a test of its own, by which we may be 
enabled to determine its presence as easily as we 
now do that of oxygen or carbonic acid. Till 
then, we must be content with what we can com- 
mand ; and the test here alluded to is human 
susceptibility. 

It is notorious, that those who have suiFered 
severely and repeatedly from intermittent, or, 
sometimes, from remittent, become, and even 
through a long course of years, so highly sus- 
ceptible, that the slightest exciting cause, and, 
among others, the slightest application of Ma- 
laria, is capable of reproducing the disease. That 
this is true of the host of sufferers at Walcheren, 
needs not be said ; while it has been also found 
common among those who have suffered from 
the intermittents of China or of Canada; as in- 
deed of many other countries, among which Mol- 
davia is said to be pre-eminent. Hence, there- 
fore, where we find that such a person has ex- 
perienced a renewal of his disorder, from com- 
munication with a place otherwise suspijcious from 



Malaria. 



27 



its nature^, it offers as convincing a proof as can 
be desired, that there Malaria is produced or 
producible. 

It is true that there may be, and there in fact 
are, places, where, apparently from the small 
quantity or moderate intensity of the poison, 
persons in health, to whom these diseases have 
been unknown, may not suffer at all ; while this 
negative is often used as an argument in favour 
of their salubrity. But it is a negative which 
proves nothing, if the effect can be produced upon 
any one individual ; while it must be remembered 
that it is a very injudicious argument to repose 
on, when it is known, that in certain seasons, 
places which are but moderately unhealthy be- 
coiiie extremely dangerous; and there is never 
any security that where the poison exists at all, 
it may not at some day be called into complete 
action. Let it be remembered, also, that accessary 
causes, causes that will be enumerated hereafter, 
must often concur, and that many persons are 
unsusceptible of the poison, as some are of small 
pox and other diseases ; facts which, it is easy 
to see, will have an additional influence when 
the Malaria is not existent in great abundance, 
or when its virulence is inferior to that which it 
displays in the hotter climates. 



28 



EVIDENCES OF 



There is a pride indeed in foolhardiuess^ but it 
is a sufficiently silly one ; while there are abun- 
dant useful or necessary hazards which every one 
may encounter^ if he pleases, and which many 
must brave, however unwilling. There is little 
merit in courage where there is neither duty nor 
utility ; but if some, as is but too true, cannot 
quit the places where their lot has been cast, nor 
entirely avoid the hazards to which their modes 
of life may subject them, there is still much to be 
done in avoidance and precaution, which will be 
discovered hereafter, in the course of this essay ; 
while it is satisfactory to reflect that our sufferings 
were at least the inevitable result of our duties, 
and that we have not aggravated them by our 
own want of prudence or want of knowledge. 

I am almost ashamed, on this subject, to an- 
swer such an argument as the following ; and 
yet it is by such arguments that the people at 
large do defend their opinions ; while I must not 
forget of what the mass of mankind is composed, 
nor who my readers may be. A resident in a Lin- 
colnshire fen dies of a remittent fever at the age 
of thirty or forty. The cause cannot be in the 
pestiferous spot, it is said, else the man should 
have died at twenty, fifteen, or ten. The answer 
does not seem very remote, and needs not 



MALARIA. 



29 



be very long. At Mantua^, at Ferrara^ at Syra- 
cuse^ at Cagliari, no one should live at all ; every 
man should die at the hour of his birth. I need 
not be more explanatory ; let others complete the 
answer. 

If I have now dwelt at some length on the 
evidences from which I shall shortly enumerate 
certain little suspected situations as generative 
of Malaria, it is because I consider the assign- 
ment of these as a matter of the greatest import- 
ance, inasmuch as the health of the people must 
very mainly be affected by their knowledge or 
ignorance in this respect. It is by knowledge 
and conviction of what is insalubrious that they 
will avoid ill health and death, as far as inevitable 
duties or circumstances permit ; as it is by igno- 
rance that they will run themselves into dangers 
and sufferings which they might have avoided. 

And it is only thus, also, that those remedies 
which consist in altering the nature of poisonous 
situations can be applied, applicable as we know 
them to be. There was a time when our rude 
ancestors did not know that their poisonous 
marshes were the causes of pestilence and death. 
This we have learned, and have profited accord- 
ingly. But we have not learned all ; though, 
with the usual conceit tliat atti^nds on every new" 



30 



EVIDENCES OF 



step in improvement^ we would fain believe that 
we have nothing more to acquire. 

It will be seen^ when the classes of soil and 
situation which I am shortly to point out shall 
be enumerated^ that there are many, very many 
cases, in which either the remedy, the remedy of 
prevention, is easy, or where the hazard, always 
incurred through ignorance, needs not be encoun- 
tered. But, for these ends, they must be known ; 
and, for these ends, further, the people must be 
informed, cr rather convinced. My duty, as it is 
my design, is to make them known ; let he who 
has the power of convincing mankind that they 
have been in error, and that they are ignorant, 
undertake the other task. But time effects what 
man cannot ; and hereafter, perhaps, an English 
gentleman will be as much surprised that his 
neighbour should dig a sleeping canal before his 
door, as that his feudal ancestor should have built 
his castle in a marsh, and inclosed it within a 
putrid moat. 

To suggest that he Vv ho does this is sowing the 
seeds of disease, that he may reap the fruit of 
fevers and apothecaries' bills, is to excite the 
smile of superciliousness or contempt ; as he 
must long yet submit to be the object of both, 
who would try to convince mankind that the 



MALARIA. 



31 



pond which has been constructed for a few gold 
fishes, or the river which meanders through the 
woody valley, is a death-spring of diseases, or 
that the fevers and the tooth-aches which are the 
torments of his family, the ailing wife who is his 
own torment, and the sciatica which is the tor- 
ment of his poorer neighbours, are the produce of 
a few bunches of rushes, or of a splendid display 
of waterlilies. Yet the time is not very long past, 
it is not every where past yet, when the inter- 
mittent itself was supposed to be salutary, when 
a spring ague" was esteemed such a blessing as 
persons of similar powers of reasoning even 
now esteem the gout ; and the time will also ar- 
rive, when he who has smiled at this philosophy, 
will, in his turn, be the object of a smile to the 
heir who shall expend in laying dry as much as 
his predecessor wasted in inundating. 

The obscure cases in question are very princi- 
pally such, that while prevention is generally 
easy, either by amending an existing bad situa- 
tion, or avoiding an incurable one, it seems espe- 
cially called for, from their number, as well as 
from the number and the invetracy of the dis- 
eases thus generated. Let me urge what 1 said 
before, that Malaria produces,in itself, a far w ider 
mass of human misery than any other cause of 



32 



EVIDENCES OF 



disease ; as^ for the world at large, it is also the 
cause of far more than half the mortality of man- 
kind. And that many of the diseases which it 
produces are almost beyond the power of physic, 
while marked by a resistance which often ter- 
minates but v/ith life, is an additional reason for 
making every exertion to avoid what we know 
not how to cure. And further, if I am myself 
fully convinced by wide observation, it would also 
not be difficult to prove, that this very persist- 
ence, the cause of so much misery, is most gene- 
rally the result, not of a fixed disease, of organic 
affections, as commonly supposed^ or of invete- 
rate habit, but of incautious or unknown, and re- 
peated or continued exposure to the re-exciting 
cause. Malaria. 

Hence, if the diseases from this cause are in- 
curable in the places where they arose, as is noto- 
rious in every marked situation of this nature 
throughout Europe, so it is from repeated expo- 
sures to Malaria that they are renewed, even 
under change of place ; and from ignorance, ge- 
nerally, of the situations, too often unsuspected, 
which are productive of the poison. He who la- 
bours under an incurable intermittent in England, 
is perhaps sent to Italy or France for change of 
air and a cure ; as thousands are daily sent, for 



MALARIA. 



33 



other reasons^ to the same countries. The phy- 
sician forgets, and the patient knows not, that he 
is flying Scylla to rush into Charybdis, and too 
often confirms the disease or meets the death 
which he meant to avoid ; while he who hopes to 
leave consumption behind him at Montpelher, 
leaves it indeed in the grave where the fever has 
superseded his more tardy enemy ; as he who 
flies from poverty and England to the banks of 
the Rhone or the Loire, finds too late that he has 
bartered his health for the expected ease and 
happiness of France. 

And thus, even in England, it is the Malaria, 
lurking even in a thousand unsuspected places, 
which perpetuates, if it does not produce, those 
diseases which are the curse of thousands, render- 
ing life a burden to the owner, and depriving him 
of those powers for the use of which he was 
created. If, with these views, the cases which 
form the subject of the fourth Chapter are, espe- 
cially enumerated, both minutely and strongly, if 
even any one instance should prove unfounded, it 
is much better that we should err by superfluous 
precaution, and even through groundless fears, 
than by ignorance and rashness. I am fully wil- 
ling to bear the blame of exaggeration, if exag- 
geration shall be proved ; or the ridicule, should 



34 



EVIDENCES OF, &C. 



that be the weapon preferred : holding little of 
the civil courage of him who^ with such an object 
in view as the benefit of mankind^ is not ready to 
submit to that which has ever been the lot of those 
who undertake to do good to others, against their 
will, and in. spite of their prejudices or igno- 
rance. 



35 



CHAPTER III 

On the soils and situations which most com 
monly 'produce Malaria, 

It is as superfluous to describe what constitutes a 
marshy as it is unnecessary to insist on what is 
universally admitted. But this condition of land 
is subject to so many diversities of character, and 
such variations, that it is by no means superflu- 
ous to notice some of them, particularly where 
they are, in the popular opinion, esteemed in 
noxious ; as it is only by cautioning the people 
respecting these unsuspected evils, that we can 
succeed in diminishing the production of this* 
class of diseases. 

Now, to commence, v/hile it is generally be- 
lieved that marshes of fresh water are, even in 
our own island, productive of Malaria, it is a 
scarcely less common popular conviction, that 
salt marshes are innocent in this respect. What- 
ever may be true of the northern and colder parts 
of Britain, no observer can doubt that Malaria 
is produced by salt marshes in the southern parts, 
and, as might be expected, most conspicuously in 

D 2 



36 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



hot summers ; the examples being found in so 
many places that it is unnecessay to name them, 
since the difficulty would be to find the ex- 
emption. 

Could any doubt indeed remain about this^ it 
would be removed by the examination of this 
kind of soil .over almost the whole world. The 
salt marshes of Normandy, of which the country 
round Dol may be taken as a sample, are noto- 
riously productive of intermittents, to such a de- 
gree, that scarcely an inhabitant is exempt from 
them ; while the general effect on the population 
is what is usually produced in such cases ; a con- 
dition which will fall under review hereafter. It 
is the same on the French shores of the Medi- 
terranean ; it is the same in the Adriatic, on both 
shores, as it is in Greece and Italy generally, and 
as it is in Sicily, in Sardinia, in the Crimea, in 
Spain, every where, in short, in the middle and 
southern parts of Europe ; and it is equally true 
of every part of the African, Asiatic, and Ame- 
can continents, at least within the range of heat, 
which, however indefineable, extends far beyond 
the torrid into the temperate zones. 

It is perhaps superfluous to add here, what, if 
not strictly the same, is so far analogous as to 
admit of being quoted, and of which examples 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



37 



might equally be drawn from many other parts 
of the world. 

It has frequently been remarked in Holland, 
that the severest seasons of fever have followed 
casual irruptions of the sea, and also that, on 
these occasions, there has been produced a degree 
of putrefaction, attended with an insufferable 
smell, unusual in other cases; a fact which, if not 
necessary to the generation of Malaria and fever, 
still marks an ultimate degree of that vegetable 
decomposition which, in some previous condition, 
is capable of producing the peculiar substance 
which is the cause of the diseases under review. 
Nor is there any reason why this, and many other 
similar and analogous facts, should not be true ; 
since we know that the decomposition of dead 
vegetable matter takes place as effectually and 
readily in salt water as in fresh. It has even been 
asserted by many writers on this subject, both in 
France and Italy, that the putrefaction is more 
rapid wherever salt and fresh water intermix, and 
that salt marshes are consequently more perni- 
cious than fresh ; the well known experiments of 
Sir John Pringle on the effects of small quanti- 
ties of salt in aiding this process, having been 
quoted in support. Facts, in confirmation of 
these opinions, are quoted from Leyden in 1679, 



38 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



where an accidental event of this nature produced 
a very destructive fever ; from Martigues in 
France, and elsewhere ; but whatever the value 
of the theory may be, there seems no reason at 
least to doubt that other circumstances being the 
same, it is at least indifferent whether the marsh 
be salt or fresh. 

Further, it is a popular prejudice, and a some- 
what more defined one on the same subject^ that 
however such soils may produce Malaria when 
exposed for any length of time, their injurious 
qualities are remedied wherever they are washed 
by the sea. But for this also there seems no 
ground ; however difficult it may be, without an 
accuracy and extent of personal examination 
which must ever be impossible, to be satisfied 
that, in situations of this nature, there is not 
some portion or spot present, independent of that 
which is subject to daily immdation from the 
tide. Others must attempt to investigate the 
truth here, as far as they c^n ; but, in the mean 
time, the testimony of all voyagers seems to 
establish, that there are few places more produc- 
tive of Malaria and fevers than the palm and 
mangrove rivers of the tropical climates, as I 
shall have occasion hereafter to show more parti- 
cularly ; while the characters of these are too well 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 39 



known to require description. Perhaps similar 
doubts as to the exact purity of the observation 
may sometimes attach in our own country ; yet 
there are few tracts in England more productive 
of a Malaria, which is even of a virulent nature, 
than Heron bay and the river banks in general 
about Reculver, where the water is salt, and the 
whole is covered twice in the day. The same 
indeed is true of so many parts of England, that the 
enumeration would be equally tedious and super- 
fluous. Be the truth, however, what it may, in 
this case, it will be always the most safe belief to 
adopt the opinion and to act on it ; as the philo- 
sophical evil of the error, if it be one, bears no 
comparison to its value as a practical security. . 

The power of woods in generating Malaria is 
not less notorious than that of marshes, at least 
in the tropical climates. To repeat all that has 
been written respecting this particular class of 
soils, would be to compile without purpose. The 
jungles and the jungle fevers of India are as fa- 
miliar, even to the multitude, as the ditches and 
fevers of Walcheren. The jungle, it must how- 
ever be remarked, is a low and dense brushwood, 
or a thicket of reeds and grass ; and it is often, 
consequently, as the residence of moisture and 
decaying vegetation, analagous to a marsh, Yet 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

the production of fever does not seem limited to 
this particular species of woods in India ; since, 
according to the testimony of Buchanan, con- 
firmed by that of others in several parts of the 
East, fevers are produced among the opener and 
larger forests, in Mysore and elsewhere, and are 
in fact the usual concomitants of all woods. 

Yet in this matter, and even in those climates, 
there appears some irregularity, as far at least as 
we can judge from the reports of ordinary tra- 
vellers ; since it is said that, in Cambodia, Co- 
chinchina, and Siam, there are extensive tracts of 
wood where fevers are unknown. As to Africa, 
the same rules seem to apply, as far as it is 
known to us ; and the same also seems true of 
the warmer regions of America, however the 
opener and drier pine forests may be exempt. I 
need not here notice the mangrove woods, be- 
cause they have been mentioned as a variety of 
salt marshes, and will come under review again 
for another purpose. But I may be allowed to 
remark, that what I have quoted respecting the 
woods of those peninsulas and shores which in- 
tervene between Bengal and China, does not 
appear matter of authority ; particularly when 
the same traveller remarks that, reversely, the 
plains of these countries are insalubrious, while 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



41 



those of Bengal are healthy ; since this assu- 
redly is not the fact. Though it is the remark 
of an acute general observer^ it must be sup- 
posed one of those errors of observation not un- 
usual with those who have not been exerting 
their attention on a particular subject. 

Even in the warmer climates of Europe, as 
well as in the colder ones, very little Suspicion 
seems entertained respecting woods ; yet while 
there is much reason to doubt their exemption 
from Malaria in our own quarter of the globe, I 
have no absolute evidence against them to pro- 
duce, from the writings of physicians and eco- 
nomists, or none at least which is very definitive. 
It is possible that they may have been over- 
looked amid districts where there are other 
causes present in abundance ; as it is easy to at- 
tribute to the open soil, what may, in reality, be 
the produce of the wood in its neighbourhood. 
If there are scattered facts, which seem to prove 
my conjectures respecting their pernicious pro- 
perties right, I am unwilling to quote them ; 
since there is so much more of foreign inquiry 
on this subject, which I must needs leave to a 
future investigation and to others ; intending 
this, as I do, rather for a stimulus to future in- 
quirers than as an entire inquiry in itself. I have 



42 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



a far other opinion of the extent and importance 
of this subject, than to suppose it capable of 
being adequately treated in a sketch so slender 
as this is meant to be : and if, in the hands of 
Italian writers, this question, even as it relates to 
their own country alone, has often occupied 
three or four volumes, each as bulky as my own, 
I need not surely say that I have not here ex- 
hausted the subject. 

There is the more reason for thinking that 
close and wet woods in general, throughout Eu- 
rope, at least in the warmer parts, produce Mala- 
ria, from the fact of their unquestionably pro- 
ducing it in our own country. If any one will 
examine the districts in Sussex and Kent which 
produce both intermittent and rcmittent fevers, 
he will often be unable to assign a cause, unless 
he seeks it in the v>^oods, which, from their cha- 
racters, seem amply competent to this effect. 
And we must often explain, in the same manner, 
the occurrence of these fevers, in the form of 
habitual endemics, in Hampshire, as well as in 
Essex: occurring, in the latter, in the center, 
and on the borders especially, of Epping forest, 
in the higher grounds, even where the soil is 
gravelly, and being by no means limited, as is 
popularly imagined, to its flat wet meadows or 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



43 



marshy tracts. And, in a similar manner, it is 
found that antiimnal fever occurs, even in Wales, 
and among the grounds of the higher vallies, in 
the vicinity of plashy woods and coppices, and 
even where these are situated on the steep decli- 
vities of the hills. Let others who have better 
or other local opportunities, extend these proofs 
by adequate investigations ; since, to any one 
inquirer, the means of such examination must 
necessarily be limited. 

But there are some general facts belonging to 
this question which must not be passed over, 
particularly as, for want of making some neces- 
sary distinctions, there will be found, in writers, 
considerable contradictions on this subject. 
However I might wish here to examine the 
whole, it would infringe on the order of this 
Essay, to notice at present what belongs rather 
to the propagation than the production of Mala- 
ria ; and I can only regret that it is nearly im- 
possible to prevent the different branches of this 
inquiry from interfering with each other. 

If woods or trees do, in certain and sufficiently 
numerous cases, generate Malaria, and thus ren- 
der a district unhealthy, they are also often a 
safeguard ; or a country which was before 
healthy, may become the reverse by cutting them 



44 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



down. In sncb cases, the poison is actually pro- 
duced sometimes by this change ; in others, the 
propagation merely is facilitated or extended. 
As a pi oof of the former fact, Rush has observed, 
that, in Pensylvania, epidemics invariably follow 
the clearing and cultivation of forest lands, and 
that they do not disappear till after many years 
of continued agriculture. The same remark has 
been made in France : and the district of Bresse 
(Lyonnais) which was comparatively healthy 
when full of woods^ has become nearly depopu- 
lated since they w^ere cut down. In this parti- 
cular case, as in some others, the facility of 
propagation has probably been increased, and 
may have been the main cause ; but in that of 
America, above cited, and in others, in addition 
to the mere circumstance of breaking up the 
land, the cause will be found in the action of the 
sun on the wet ground, previously guarded from 
it by the shade of the trees. It is a more general 
cause, if one which operates more slowly, that 
thus also the climate is improved, or becomes 
warmer ; a fact of which there is abundant evi- 
dence all over the world ; and thus, even over a 
whole country, the production of Malaria may 
be increased. To this general effect I have al- 
luded in speaking hereafter of Rome ; and it is 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



45 



not improbable that it has had a very extensive 
influence all over Europe, and indeed in America 
also, however counteracted by improvements of 
various kinds ; since, as is familiar, the whole 
of cur division of the world has undergone an 
immense change in this respect, or a general 
augmentation of its temperature, since the times 
of classic antiquity. 

Reversely, it follows that the planting of trees 
will sometimes check the production of Malaria, 
by protecting wet lands from the action of the 
sun : while by absorbing and dissipating the 
moisture, and not less by destroying, through 
their shade, an injfirious vegetation, they may 
act in other modes not less salutary. There is 
a real truth therefore in Pliny's remark, else- 
where quoted, that trees destroy or consume the 
mephitic vapours ; however inaccurate his phi- 
losophy may be on this subject. 

It is plain, therefore, that even independent of 
the effects of trees as relates to the propagation 
of Malaria, a circumstance in itself of great deli- 
cacy to understand or manage, it will require 
considerable attention and reasoning, and those 
directed to the precise spot in question, to deter- 
mine on planting or tlic reverse, Avhen the object 
is to correct an unhealthy soil by such means ; 



46 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



while nothing more can here be done than to 
furnish the general principles by which any such 
attempts must be guided. 

To say that rice grounds are productive of 
Malaria, is equally to state a fact notorious to the 
whole world ; while the causes, consisting in a 
succession of inundation and drainage, approxi- 
mate them in character to swamps and marshes, 
however obscure the immediate operation of 
either in producing this poison may be. How 
extensively Italy suffers from this cause, it is 
quite superfluous to say ; since the mortality in 
Lombardy, and elsewhere, arising from it, is 
matter of daily observation, even to the most 
incurious travellers. And the same is true of 
Greece and Sicily, as it is generally of Europe, 
wherever this grain is cultivated. 

In France, the same remarks have been made, 
far too extensively and by observers too accurate, 
to leave it a matter of doubt ; it having been 
further demonstrated, that this cultivation has 
introduced disease where it was unknown before, 
and materially augmented tliat of lands where 
Malaria had formerly existed in a moderate de- 
gree. Here, as in Italy, not only are the usual 
summer fevers produced, but the inhabitants are, 
in the same manner, the victims to visceral ob- 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



47 



str actions and dropsies, as to all the other ail- 
ments elsewhere enumerated. It is even stated, 
on authorities which seem to admit of no dispute, 
that in those districts the term of life does not 
exceed forty, and that the population is deci- 
mated in every year. In certain parts of Russia, 
and pointedly near Oczacow, the cultivation of 
rice is prohibited for this reason ; and it is well 
known that a similar intention as to certain parts 
of France and Italy, had seriously been enter- 
tained by Napoleon, while some partial attempts 
were also made to carry it into execution. In 
spite of such experience and such evidence, there 
are persons, as in all points of physic there have 
ever been, who assert that the cultivation of rice 
is not unwholesome, and that in Italy especially, 
it is not a source of Malaria. What answer can 
be made to assertions in the face of all evidence? 
what but that silence with which we receive the 
similar assertions of those who maintain that 
plague and jail fever are not contagious. The 
reason assigned by Zacchiroli will not at least 
be received as proof ; when it is, that the air in 
such situations contains as much oxygen as else- 
where. Could Eadiometry prove this, it would 
prove much more that we should be well pleased 
to find true ; and when he wishes similarly to 



48 



SOILS A^iD. SITUATIONS 



prove that liemp ponds cannot be pernicious^ be- 
cause the water contains tannin, we can only 
smile at the all-sufhciency of a schoolboy's che- 
mistry. Unquestionably, it may be admitted that 
rice grounds will vary in this respect according 
to the nature of the soil, the mode of treatment, 
the periods of inundation and drainage, and the 
peculiarities of the climate, so that it is even 
possible to conceive a case of exception ; but 
unless China can produce such, I know not that 
one instance of exemption has yet been pointed 
out. 

A similar assertion has been occasionally made 
respecting the rice grounds of India, namely, 
that they do not produce fever, and, consequently, 
do not generate Malaria ; it being further as- 
serted that this is especially the fact in the penin- 
sula. Indian experience, it might be said, should 
be allov/ed to determine how far this is really 
true ; as no one ought to contradict such an as- 
sertion from theory or analogy. In the mean 
time, we may at least be allowed to doubt ; while 
if it should prove true, it is but like so many 
other anomalies in this case, incapable of expla- 
nation for want of more accurate knowledge of 
the necessary facts. 

It will be difficult, however, to admit the truth 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA 



49 



of an opinion which considers the rice grounds 
of Bengal or similar districts as not productive 
of remittent fever^ until it is explained whence 
arise those fevers which so often rage in India, 
and of which the year 1762 produced so destruc- 
tive an instance ; since it was computed that, in 
this one season, the mortality included 30,000 
natives and 800 Europeans in Bengal alone. 
Inundations of the Ganges may be allowed their 
full share, and so, in many situations, may jun- 
gles ; but if we exclude the rice cultivation, we 
shall scarcely find sufficient causes for a mortality 
of this nature, of which that country furnishes, 
and has furnished at all times, abundant ex- 
amples. 

But were^it even admitted that such a cultiva- 
tion, in that country, did not produce fevers, or 
rather, what is the more common assertion, that 
it does not produce intermittents, and therefore 
does not generate Malaria, it does not follow that 
it does not generate Malaria productive of other 
diseases. Malaria does not necessarily produce 
intermittent ; as the pure and simple, original 
ague is rare in many of the most pestiferous parts 
of Europe ; yet no one doubts its existence in 
those countries . And that it produces glandular 
and visceral aifections in France, in Sicily, in 



50 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



Italy, all over Europe, without previous decided 
fever, or without producing fevers at all, is as no- 
torious as any thing in the whole history of these 
diseases ; while there seems no reason whatever to 
doubt that this is also a common occurrence in 
our own country. Hence, therefore, it might 
even be admitted, were it necessary, that from 
some unexplained peculiarity in the Malaria of 
India, or of the climate, or of the state of con- 
stitution in the individuals, its action was often 
to generate glandular disease rather than pure 
fever, since the common endemic of India, hepa- 
titis, is in reality the produce of its Malaria, and 
probably of that of its very marshes, meadows, 
and rice grounds. But it really seems unneces- 
sary to seek for explanations to answer Avhat 
appears the mere random assertion of a few in- 
dividuals, biassed by some hypothesis, or unac- 
quainted with the subject. 

Such is an enumeration, as far as it is here 
necessary, of the most obvious and acknowledged 
species of soils or situations productive of Ma- 
laria. This is the ordinary view of the subject 
which is taken by the people at large, wherever 
obvious circumstances have led them to feel an 
interest in it ; and I have, therefore, for the 
greater part, thought it superfluous to be minute, 



WHICH PRODUCE MALARIA. 



51 



because that would have been to detail and to 
prove what is known and admitted. If there 
are other kinds of land which, as modifications 
of these, must also be ranked among the ad- 
mitted sources, they are so much more nearly 
connected with those cases where the production 
of Malaria is doubted or denied, that it seems 
most convenient to pause here, and to class all 
the remaining causes together in one chapter. 
And I hold it the more useful to adopt such a 
division, because these remaining cases will thus 
attract more attention than if they had been con- 
founded with the broader facts from which they 
essentially derive, and because my chief object 
in this history of Malaria is to call the public 
attention to the innumerable neglected or denied 
sources of that poison. 



52 



CHAPTER IV. 



Of the soils and situations less conspiaiously pro- 
ductive of Malaria^ or as yet unsuspected of it. 

To begin with the qualities of soil or situation 
which are least likely to undergo dispute as to 
their power in producing Malaria, or which are 
partially or tacitly acknowledged to possess this 
property, I may commence from the fundamental 
point, the marsh or swamp. 

If it is acknowledged or proved that marsh or 
swamp, whether fresh or salt, is generative of 
Malaria, it is also a very common opinion that a 
certain extent of this soil, and, generally, a con- 
siderable one, is necessary to the production of 
disease. This is an er^or ; and it must be classed 
among the dangerous ones, as being productive 
of a false security. 

A priori, if a large tract of land in this parti- 
cular condition produces a given quantity of 
Malaria, it is certain that this mass must be an 
union of all the portions generated by its parts ; 
and if, as is the fact, however vaguely stated, 
this poison is the chemical produce of vegetables 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS, &C. 



53 



living or dead, acting on water, or acted on by 
it, then must every plant and fragment of a 
plant contribute its share of the deleterious 
substance. 

Now there is a certain analogy between Ma- 
laria and the matter of contagion, but on which 
it is unnecessary here to enter ; and while we 
know that a quantity of contagion which is im- 
ponderable, as it is insensible to every chemical 
test, and equally so to all our senses, is sufficient 
to produce its peculiar disease by its poisonous 
and chemical action on the body, we have no 
reason to suppose that elfects analogous may not 
be produced by the minutest portions of Ma- 
laria ; since, if we suppose any imaginable quan- 
tity applied, however large, it is still as insensible 
and as imponderable as the matters of contagion. 
It would bear that analogy in this point, which 
it does to contagion in so many others, if a small 
quantity were as efficacious a poison as a large 
one ; and there are reasons for supposing, prac- 
tically, that this is the fact, since it is matter of 
observation, that a minute's exposure to Malaria, 
a single inspiration probably, and of a poison 
which must be far more diluted than contagions 
can ever be in the same circumstances, is suffi- 
cient to excite its fever, and, very notoriously. 



54 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



to re-excite it in those who are subject to that 
morbid sensibility derived from former or habitual 
fevers. And as aposterio7^i,axij careful observer can 
confirm this last fact, it may be concluded with 
as much security as such a case admits^ that the 
quantity of Malaria necessary to produce its pe- 
culiar disease or diseases, is undefinably small, 
and probably extremely minute. 

Could this admit of doubt, or should those 
who have made no observations, or who are in- 
capable of observing, choose to deny the well- 
known facts now alluded to as evidence, it w^ould 
be proved by the great distance to which Malaria 
travels through the air without losing its poison- 
ous quality. Not to dwell here on examples 
which must be adduced hereafter, it is quite fa- 
miliar that from any known and often very limited 
spot, this poison will proceed through the air, or 
on the winds, to distances of three or four miles, 
exciting as much virulence as in its native marsh. 
This, to quote a familiar domestic example out 
of hundreds that might be adduced, occurs on 
the hills of Kent, far from the marshes of Erith, 
Northfleet, or Gravesend ; and it is easy to see 
that whatever was the body or quantity of Ma- 
laria in the original place of its production, or 
whatever portion of atmosphere it occupied over 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 55 

the few acres by which it was produced^ it must 
often^ in such a course, have been diluted to a 
degree so incomprehensible, that while we can 
only wonder how it should exist at all as a dis- 
tinct substance, or a chemical compound, even 
more must we be surprised that it should be ca- 
pable of producing its peculiar diseases, with an 
activity as great, and often greater, than it did at 
the very point of its birthplace. 

In reality, this implies an activity on the part 
of Malaria, or, what is the same thing, a power 
possessed by minute quantities of this poison, to 
which that of all the contagions with which we 
are acquainted bears not the most remote com- 
parison ; since it is notorious that the distance of 
but a few feet from the most active sources of 
these poisons, of the contagion of plague and of 
typhus, for example, is sufficient to render them 
innoxious, even where the presence of a crowd of 
living bodies in the act of producing them, assures 
us that the quantity generated must be consider- 
able, and when we have also reason to believe, 
from the facility with which they unite to solid 
bodies so as to retain their properties, even for 
years, that they are not destroyed in the cases 
referred to, but merely diluted into inac- 
tivity. 



9 



56 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

The conclusion is obvious ; and there is no- 
thing in it which seems to admit of dispute^ since 
it is almost a question of arithmetic. If the pro- 
duce of a hundred square feet^ or acres, or of any 
scale and number of parts, can, under a dilution 
of one thousand or ten thousand times, excite 
disease, then must, in the inverse ratio, the pro- 
duce of the one-thousandth or the ten-thousandth 
portion of that space be capable, before dilution, 
of producing the same effects ; or a single blade - 
of grass acting on water (if this be the cause) 
may be as efficacious as an acre ; supposing, of 
course, that it is actually applied to that part of 
the body which can suffer from its action. 

A marsh, therefore, as far as its essence con- - 
sists in producing Malaria, is not to be defined 
by space, or it does not demand extent ; and I 
must now show that it is not to be defined by its 
aspect, as that is commonly understood. It is 
essentially necessary to analyze this subject to its 
very ultimate elements, before we can form a 
right understanding respecting it. 

In different climates, a marsh or swamp, other 
circumstances being the same, may vary mate- 
rially in its obvious aspect, according to the nature 
of the plants which form its vegetation ; but as 
no well founded suspicion has ever yet been en- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



57 



tertained that these have^, according to their di- 
verse quahties, any influence in this matter^ we 
must at present, perhaps, consider them as mere 
vegetables, living or dead ; since we cannot prove 
that there is even a difference in the action of 
the ligneous and the herbaceous plants, other 
ban what may depend on the relative facility of 
iheir decomposition. 

I do not, however, mean to prejudge this par- 
ticular question, or to suppose that the nature of 
the plants subjected to the action which produces 
Malaria, does not affect either its virulence, or its 
quantity, or the rapidity of its production ; or 
even, further, that as there are diversities of con- 
tagion producing different diseases, so there may 
not be differences in the varieties of Malaria, 
whether depending on this or any other cause, 
which influence or direct the production of the 
several disorders which arise from this as a leading 
or generic source. So far from that, w^e might, 
in the first place, very naturally infer, that as 
certain parts of any vegetable are more prone 
ihan others to decomposition or putrefaction, and 
as there are also some plants which run faster 
into this state than others, so there might be im- 
portant differences in the quantity, quality, or 



58 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



rapidity of the poisonous produce^ connected as 
tills is with the decomposition in question. 

Thus^ also, knowing, as we do, that the sensible 
gaseous produce of some plants in this state, is 
very different from that of others, and knowing 
also, from chemical analysis, that there are nu- 
merous and very striking differences in the ele-r 
men tar y constitutions of plants, as there are in 
their actions on the animal body while in a living 
state, it would not be an irrational supposition 
that the peculiar substance. Malaria, which re- 
sults, as a genus, from all vegetable decomposi- 
tion, could be regulated, as to certain variations, 
by the original chemical nature of the plant pro- 
ducing it ; or that, under this leading type, there 
were essential varieties, poisons capable of pro- 
ducing different diseases or modifications of dis- 
ease, just as difl'erent gases, distinguishable by 
their smells, if not as yet subjected to better and 
chemical tests, are produced during the decom- 
position of such plants. 

Thus, to have recourse to illustration, might 
the cruciform plants, or the tribe of fungi, pro- 
duce a Malaria differing from that poison as re- 
sulting from the gramineous ones, or the conse- 
quence of the putrefaction of seeds differ from 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 59 

that of leaves; and thus also, while the putre- 
faction of capsicum produces a gas singularly 
fetid and remarkable, as does that of the Bixa 
Oreliana one not less offensive, if different, might 
the Malaria generated by these be attended with 
unusual virulence, or some other peculiarities. If 
it is true that we have not as yet any decided evi- 
dence on this subject, there are not absolutely 
wanting some facts which appear to justify such 
a conjecture ; such as the peculiarly poisonous 
effects of flax and hemp in this state ; together 
with those of indigo, often observed, and those 
of coffee and other substances, as supposed to 
have been ascertained at New York. 

Thus also has it been thought or said, that one 
cause of the superior virulence of Malaria within 
the tropics, consisted in the great proportion of 
astringent barks or vegetables which those re- 
gions produce ; though the reason assigned, 
namely, that they contain animal matter united 
to tannin, will scarcely be taken in lieu of evi- 
dence. If some French writers have been at the 
trouble of drawing up a sort of Flora of their own 
marshes with such a view, it would be sufficiently 
easy to imitate them as to our own or any other 
country : but when they lay great stress on the 
influence of narcotic vegetables, with not a little 



60 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

leaning also to a fancifully threatening physiog- 
nomy in the plants of such soils, it ought to be 
remembered that there is no great proportion of 
the aquatic plants which is narcotic, and that as 
far as beauty is concerned, there is nothing very 
unpromising in the Nymphoeas, the Butomus, 
the Hottonia, the Hydrocharis, the Sagittaria, the 
Ranunculus aquatilis, nor even in the Arundo, the 
Typha, the Scirpus, and many more, which form 
the predominant vegetation of the most poison- 
ous ditches and marshes. But, to pass over what 
is fanciful, the subject is at least one of curiosity 
and interest ; nor only thus, since it might even 
become of value in the question of prevention : 
but while nothing but possibilities can yet be sug- 
gested, we must trust to future observation for 
the investigation of this, among many other ques- 
tions still involved in the 'darkness which besets 
almost the whole of this important subject. 

But to pass from this ; the essential charac- 
ter of all marshes and swamps, as far we yet can 
decide^ is, that the land should be partially inun- 
dated, that it should be dry in some places and 
wet in others^ or that pools and dry spots should 
be intermixed, or that it should be boggy and 
soft from the mixtures of earths and decayed ve- 
getables with water, or that it should be subject 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA, 



Gl 



to peculiar alternations of moisture and dryness, 
sometimes amounting to absolute inundation in 
the first case. 

Now, in all this we see no apparent reason 
why the water of the marsh should produce Ma- 
laria, because we do not find that water produces 
it in other situations ; and as little have we rea- 
son to suppose it the produce of earth and water 
mixed, or of clay or mud ; since neither is it 
caused by such mixture where vegetation, or ve- 
getable matter is not present. Nor is it produced 
by the mixture of decomposed and subcarbonized 
vegetable matter and water ; since it is notori- 
ously not produced by dead peaty bogs, or by 
peat which carries no vegetation. The presence 
of vegetables or vegetable matter, therefore, in 
some mode or form, is necessary : while the con- 
clusion has sometimes been, that it is a produc- 
tion formed between the living vegetable and 
water ; more generally, that it is generated be- 
tween that and the latter in some stage interme- 
diate between life and absolute decomposition ; 
or, lastly, that it is the consequence of absolute 
putrefaction. 

A qualifying remark is, however, here neces- 
sary on the subject of peat. This is a substance 
which is not generated at all, above a certain 



G2 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

average temperature, on account of the rapidity 
with which, in the higher ones, vegetable 
matters hasten to utter decomposition. Hence it 
is Hmited, either to the colder climates or to the 
more elevated regions in the hotter ones ; and 
though not by any means confined to a tempera- 
ture so low as to be incapable of producing Ma- 
laria, the greater and more numerous tracts of 
peat land will be found to belong to countries or 
places where the production of this poison is 
checked for want of the necessary heat. With 
this limitation, there will be no difficulty in show- 
ing, as I shall very soon, that peat lands are not 
exempt from the production of Malaria ; though 
as no gas appears to be gei>erated from this sub- 
stance under the action of water, when once it is 
thoroughly formed, no such produce could be 
expected from perfect peat ; while we must look 
for it in those cases where the process is still 
incomplete, and chiefly in those where the vege- 
tation is still going on, or where the whole series 
is in action, from the living vegetable to that 
completed peat where all decomposition seems at 
an end. With respect to the other remark, 
namely, that the presence of living vegetables is 
necessary, or that Malaria is not formed during 
the putrefaction of that which is absolutely dead, 



\ 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 63 



or disintegrated, it will shortly appear that this is 
an erroneous conclusion when too exclusively 
made, though it may he viewed as a sort of rule ; 
yet under exceptions in particular climates, that 
is, in the colder ones, which almost render it use- 
less, and even false, as a rule of practice, or as a 
rule connected with precaution. 

Recurring now to the case of marshes, it re- 
mains therefore first to inquire, whether this 
peculiar contact hetween a living vegetahle, or a 
vegetable in a state of incipient, or further de- 
composition, and water, does not take place in 
many situations that are not marshes, either in 
the popular, or in any, sense ; and if this can he 
shewn, there is one main datum obtained ; while, 
if the former be also granted, namely, that space 
or bulk is not necessary to the generation of Ma- 
laria capable of producing disease, we have all 
that is necessary to prove, a priori, that a thou- 
sand .places, hitherto Unsuspected, are capable of 
exciting the disorders of this great class ; while 
the proofs, a posteriori, will be found in the evi- 
dences enumerated in the preceding chapter, or 
may, for each place so inferred, be discovered by 
such examination into its local diseases. As to 
the case of absolute putrefaction, or of decompo- 
sition, united to disintegration, I shall reserve 



64 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

the inquiries to a separate chapter ; seeing that it 
comprises some facts and statements which have 
been subjects of doubt or dispute. 

Now, that this pecuhar state of vegetation not 
only as to the appearance and character of the 
soil, but as to the mode of growth and death, 
and the very nature of the plants themselves, 
does occur in numerous situations that are not 
marshes, is the point to be proved, and is a point 
indeed that will require no proof to almost the 
most superficial observers ; no proof assuredly to 
botanists, whatever it may to medical men ; not 
often even to the observant inhabitant of the 
country, whatever it may to the hmited man of 
towns and cities. If the botanist will recognize 
the spots in question by the nature of the plants 
which attach themselves to such soils, if the 
growth of an Iris, an Equisetum, a Hydrocotyle, 
points out to him what the farmer sees, though 
less acutely, in tufts of rushes, or traces by the 
coarseness of the pasture or the canker of a tree, 
it is the latter who will know every spot of land 
about him which asks for drainage, where he to 
whom these pursuits are strange, will seek in 
vain, even should he, as a physician, be engaged 
' in investigating this very question in a medical 
view. So necessary is even such knowledge in a 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



65 



science scarcely to be cultivated, and an art no 
to be practised effectually, without a range of 
study far greater than is dreamt of by the mass 
of mankind, or than is often imagined even by 
physicians themselves. To such observers I must 
trust, to confirm facts that cannot be transported 
to the tables of the sceptical or ignorant ; and I 
may now proceed to specify the chief varieties of 
place or form in which these circumstances occur, 
and thus to shew, under what obscure, ques- 
tioned, or unsuspected circumstances. Malaria, 
with its consequent fevers and diseases, occur. 

I have just observed that pure peaty bogs do 
not produce Malaria ; and the same opinion is 
entertained in Scotland as to all peat mosses, in 
whatever condition ; while the popular reason is 
sought, since causes must always be found, in the 
imaginary antiseptic qualities of peat, or peat 
water. Asa general statement, it is as far from 
being true, as the reason is fanciful and false. 
Peat possesses no antiseptic qualities : it cannot 
itself putrify, because that process has in reality 
been completed, if in a peculiar manner : it is, 
thus far, what a vulgar phraseology in science 
used to term a caput mortuum. The water of 
peat possesses no antiseptic powers ; its contents, 
minute at all times, are merely a hydrocarbona- 

F 



66 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



ceous compound, somewhat resembling bistre or 
resin. The opinion is as puerile as the language 
is unmeaning and confused. The climate of the 
great peat bogs of the north of our island is one 
that has not energy enough to produce Malaria, 
from any thing, except in very peculiar seasons ; 
while it is so far from being proved that the in- 
termittents of the fenny and peaty counties of 
England are not actually generated in the very 
soil which is supposed to be so adverse to them, 
that there can be no question respecting their 
power in this respect, and as little respecting the 
great extent and severity of the diseases produced 
by these very lands. Further than this, I cannot 
confirm, by any very decided fact, the power of a 
pure peaty bog in producing Malaria in our own 
country, nor can it possibly be necessary : while 
I have little doubt that observers possessed of 
means that 1 have not, will find no difficulty in 
establishing, by marked and decided facts, that, 
under a sufficient heat, they are, among us, as 
active in this evil as any other wet vegetating 
soils : and that they are so in Holland, no one 
will question, whatever difficulty there may some- 
times be in separating and discriminating the 
actual causes, in those cases where land of this 
nature is intersected by drains or ditches. 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 67 

It is also a popular opinion^ that the rushy 
pools and petty swamps so common in high 
moorlands, are innocent, or incapable of pro- 
ducing Malaria. I know not why they should 
he more exempt than other marshy places, un- 
less under a very high elevation or a cold cli- 
mate ; and that the fact is not so, has been proved 
to my satisfaction, most convincingly, by many 
cases of the occurrence of intermittents, even in 
Wales, and at considerable elevations, in those 
very situations, and from these unquestionable 
causes ; while one instance is so remarkable as to 
be worth quoting specifically, though I shall 
rarely indulge in a species of proof which must 
depend, as being a single fact, on the veracity of 
the narrator. In this instance, a considerable 
body of labourers were employed in excavating a 
pond on a moor of this nature, situated about a 
thousand feet above, the level of the sea ; and in 
the course of the work, within a very short time, 
nearly one half were incapacitated by the ague. 
And if such rushy spots can, because they are ex- 
tensive, produce an extensive eiFect of this kind, 
so, as will be more fully confirmed hereafter in 
parallel cases, there is always cause for suspicion 
in the vicinity of even the smallest fragments of 
such wet land, be the character what it may. 

F 2 



68 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

There can be no doubt either, that the minute 
marshy or swampy spots which occur occasionally 
in a thousand low situations, whether on com- 
mons, near woods, by road sides, or in innumer- 
able other places where they scarcely . or never 
attract notice, are similarly productive of Mala- 
ria and disease ; though their Umlted range of 
action generally renders their power in this man- 
ner insensible, unless when houses happen to be 
erected in their vicinity. Their characters as to 
vegetation are precisely the same as that of larger 
spots ; while it would be abundantly easy to 
(.note examples of bad health, and even of severe 
f.vevs, produced by them ; though difficult and 
tedious to refer to the exact places, obscure as 
they are innumerable, or to convince the mcre- 
dulous of the truth of the fact. As to the smaller 
spots of wood, or coppice, or brushwoods, as yet 
little suspected in England, even where exten- 
sive, I need not recur to a subject on which I 
have said all that was necessary m a former 
chapter; since in this case, as in that of marshy 
crrounds, the possibility of a poisonous produce is 
not dependent on tlie extent: though, were it 
possible to refer to the places, or could the enu- 
meration which has convinced myself, produce 
any greater conviction than, the general fact thus 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



69 



Stated as operating on my own, it would be easy 
enough to enumerate the specific examples on 
which this general assertion is founded. 

In how far meadows which cannot be called 
marshy are capable of producing Malaria, is an 
intricate and entangled question ; partly on ac- 
count of the difficulty of exactly limiting the 
term meadow, or defining the degree of moisture, 
and partly because they are so often intersected 
by drains and ditches, which may sometimes be 
the generative sources, instead of the including 
land itself. I cannot hope to clear this question 
by an exact definition ; but taking the term in 
its usual lax sense, it appears unquestionable that 
there are many tracts of meadow, or of alluvial 
land, not marshy, and often not intersected by 
ditches, at least in a conspicuous manner, which 
are the sources of Malaria all over Europe. 

Such is the case with the alluvial tracts at the 
entrances, and sometimes also at the exits of the 
lakes of Switzerland, and, doubtless, elsewhere ; 
and such is the case all over France, in the allu- 
vial lands that border the great rivers, such as the 
Loire, the Seine, and the Rhone ; and in places 
innumerable where there is no proper marsh, nor 
even an approach to such a character, to which 
the prevalent diseases can be attributed. Such 



70 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



also appears to be very frequently the fact in the 
interior of Italy ; though I will not pretend to 
speak decidedly on any case which I have not 
personally examined ; knowing well^ that neither 
ordinary travellers, nor even medical observers 
in general, deserve much reliance on these sub- 
jects, inasmuch as they have not yet seen the 
necessity of pursuing these observations with the 
necessary accuracy. 

I think, however, that the testimony of Volney 
on this point is most satisfactory evidence to the 
purpose; because, while his general accuracy as 
an observer is well known, and while, as not being 
a physician or a theorist on this subject, he must 
be judged unprejudiced, he appears to have be- 
stowed a minute attention on it during his travels 
in America. And that testimony is, that every 
valley in the country which he visited, does pro- 
duce the fevers of Malaria ; while, as he has 
minutely classed his causes, so as to enumerate 
woods as v/ell as marshes, and, besides all the 
other better known sources, distinguishes even 
rivers, universally, and, still more minutely, mill- 
ponds, there can be little doubt that in thus enu- 
merating valleys, he has done so as exclusive of 
such specified sources, and therefore that, in 
these, he must have had an eye to the meadows 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 7l 

alone by which they are characterized. The 
same conchision must be drawn from many of 
the pernicious tracts which occur on the shores 
of the Mediterranean. Here, and in every country 
within this boundary, there is perhaps no valley 
terminating in the sea, be it in Spain, Italy, Sicily, 
Greece, which is not a seat of Malaria ; while, 
though many of the rivers which they include 
produce salt or fresh marshes, there are also 
many where no proper marsh is formed, and 
where therefore the poison must be generated by 
the meadow lands ; by tracts which are also the 
seats of an active cultivation. 

But, indeed, with respect to meadow lands, 
there is a circumstance of considerable import- 
ance to be considered, and which, in fact, suffices 
to determine this question ; while if, in some 
cases, it rather belongs to another branch of 
causes, it is too indeterminate and graduating in 
its degrees, to be omitted in this place ; since I 
am persuaded that it will be found the very com- 
mon cause of the Malaria and disease produced 
by the lands of this class. In the extreme cases, 
it is inundation and subsequent drying, falling 
therefore to be considered again elsewhere ; 
in others, it is that drying during spring and 
summer, which follows the moist or wet condi- 



72 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



tion of such meadow lands, as they are left by 
the winter rains. Instances of this, in all its de- 
grees, abound every where : but as one estab- 
lished example is enough, I may point out the 
lands about Fontainebleau at the junction of the 
Yonne and the Seine, notorious for the " Fievre 
du pays so injurious, that fev7 escape fever or 
intermittent over a considerable tract, while it is 
a pure example, inasmuch as there is nothing 
else present ; nothing but that drying of moist 
meadows, whether previously inundated or 
otherwise wetted in winter, which takes place 
under the summer heats. How extensively this 
cause operates as to meadow lands in all cases, 
be their characters what they may, I need not 
add: and I may therefore safely conclude, that 
wherever the heat of the climate is sufficient, 
such tracts will be among the most common 
causes of disease. 

But whatever particular causes may exist in 
any specific case, the mere fact that such tracts 
of meadow are productive of Malaria, is suffi- 
cient to operate as a caution respecting them, 
whether in the choice of habitations, or in occa- 
sional residence during the seasons in which that 
poison is called into action. 

To what extent and in what places, similar land 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



73 



produces Malaria in England^ will best be judged 
of by those whose local opportunities give them 
the means of ascertaining where the diseases 
arising from this cause exist. But that this fact 
does occur^ and frequently, admits of no doubt ; 
while I should find no difficulty here, as in every 
other case which I have described, in proving it 
most extensively, by details, details of disease and 
enumeration of places, derived from personal ob- 
servation or unquestionable authority: that au- 
thority also being peculiarly valuable, as being, 
in almost every case, a mere report of the occur- 
rence or prevalence of autumnal fevers in certain 
places, while tlie cause was unsuspected. But it 
is evident that such a proceeding would double 
the bulk of a volume, which it is most desirable 
to keep within moderate bounds. A very few 
notices only of this nature are admissible. 

If some of the great tracts of meadow land in 
this country have once been marshes, and have 
been recovered to their present condition by 
drainage, it is very certain that there are many of 
them which are now purely meadows, without the 
least remains of the marshy character; while some 
are even as dry as the ordinary lower lands of 
the plains and vallies. And yet, that these do 
produce the diseases of Malaria, is familiar to 



74 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



every one's experience ; though^ in enumerating 
some of the instances, I cannot pretend to say 
that the cause may not, sometimes, lie rather in 
the ditches than in the meadow itself. 

This is true of the meadows which border the 
Thames, not only beneath London and through 
their whole extent, but above it ; which, though 
often retaining the name of marshes, because once 
marshy, are now as dry as the common meadow 
lands of inland vallies and plains. It appccU's to 
be the fact also in many parts of Cambridgeshire 
and Essex, and, among others, in the vicinity of 
Waltham Abbey; as it also is in Kent in the isle 
of Thanet, in Somersetshire, in Lancashire, in 
Huntingdonshire, and far more commonly indeed 
than it is necessary or convenient to enumerate. 
Thus it also wns, even in the Carse of Gowrie in 
Scotland, until that great tract of alluvial mea- 
dow was brought into universal cultivation ; and 
this may perhaps serve to prove that the meadow 
land itself, and not the ditches, was the cause^ 
because the latter remain, while the grass has 
been succeeded by almost universal crops of grain. 
And it will be found, in confirmation of this, in 
France and in Flanders, and probably far wider 
than I now know, that where tracts bordering the 
same river, or in any other respect exactly similar, 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



75 



whether in soil or situation, are, respectively, 
cultivated with grain or kept in grass, there the 
production of fever or of Malaria is correspon- 
dent ; occupying the uncultivated lands so as to 
produce what is popularly called the Jlevre du 
pays, as if it was* a necessary part of the order of 
things, and flying from those that have been 
ploughed for a grain cultivation. 

How the two facts, relatively, that is, a grain 
cultivation or pasture, act in this case, it ought to 
be almost superfljious to say ; since the former 
husbandry will be commonly adopted whenever 
the meadow can be maintained in such a state of 
drainage as to fit it for the plough, while a con- 
demnation to pasture is also, in itself, almost evi- 
dence of w^et land. But I must here also add, 
w^hat I am obliged to remark elsewhere, that the 
mere act of ploughing, with the crops and pro- 
cesses which follow it, produce a very difl'erent 
effect as to the natural moisture of the soil, from 
that which must occur under a dense covering of 
luxuriant grass. 

If, in these instances, I have chiefly had in view 
the fiat meadow lands on alluvial soils, which, 
whether they have ever been marshes or not, ge- 
nerally occupy the bottoms of vallies and the 
margins of rivers, the same is not less true of 



76 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



upland meadows^ and even of perpetual pastures 
on the declivities of hills ; of all meadow or pas- 
ture land^ be its situation what it may, which is 
retentive of moisture, or which the v/inter leaves 
poachy and soft in spring, as it is thus rendered 
so again by the first autumnal rains. If I could 
confirm this by specific facts, it would be even more 
inconvenient, from the difficulty of reference to 
such spots ; and I shall, therefore, content myself 
with suggesting to those who, in the country, 
wheresoever, observe the fevers of autumn to occur 
or prevail, to examine the land around, and to see 
whether, in the absence of more obvious causes, 
this one is not present. They may thus convince 
themselves as I could not so readily convince 
them ; since they may be assured, as I hope to 
prove satisfactorily hereafter, that some such 
cause is always the cause of these fevers, and that 
all the others so often resorted to, are imaginary ; 
while it is also fully time for them to understand 
that such fevers are not contagious ; are not ty- 
phus. To proceed to other causes. 

It is not only a popular but a rooted opinion 
in England, that there can be no Malaria produced 
near a running river or stream of any nature ; an 
error, beyond doubt, and one, of which the con- 
sequences may be, dnd are occasionally, serious. 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



77 



With respect to the rapid streams of mountain- 
ous or elevated countries^ it is not probable that 
they are ever the causes of such diseases ; yet^ 
in France^ this opinion is held respecting all the 
rivers at least that intersect the flatter lands. In 
a work so popular and, in this sense, vulgar, as 
the Letters of Madame Campan, this opinion is 
expressed in very strong language. And it is 
apparently the result of a wide experience in 
France, though there are doubtless cases where 
the inclosing meadow may be the cause of what 
is attributed to the river banks. As to America, 
we have the very strong and decisive testimony 
of Volney, the accuracy of whose observations 
can seldom be questioned, that every river in 
that country which he visited, whether rapid or 
stagnant, produces Malaria and fevers. How 
frecpiently the same opinion prevails in Italy, 
cannot fail to be known to the numerous tra- 
vellers in that country. 

That the same should occur in tide rivers, such 
as the Thames, would be a natural expectation, 
from the margin which is thus exposed under all 
the worst circumstances that belong to marshy 
lands. And that it is the fact with regard to the 
Thames, I formerly noticed ; always providing a 
saving clause against cavils from the vicinity of 



78 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



ditcHes or imdrained spots, as already remarked. 
And if the same elFeet should occur in any river 
subject to alternations of altitude from floods^ or 
from ordinary increase and decrease, as is remark- 
ably the case with the Loire, it cannot be a mat- 
ter of surprise, because the deserted margin, or 
the bank which is alternately wetted and dried 
is, in many cases, precisely a marsh, in as far as 
we can conjecture what are the circumstances in 
this which do produce Malaria. Where, under 
such circumstances as this, the exposure of mud 
is the consequence, it forms a case which will 
come under examination hereafter. 

If indeed any argument were wanted further, 
to prove that the perpetual flow of fresh water, 
or the alternate rise and fall of the tide so as to 
cover twice in the day a tract of the nature in 
question, were not remedies or preventives against 
the production of Malaria, it is amply demon- 
strated, and in a thousand places, in the inter- 
tropical or hot climates, as I formerly suggested 
when speaking of salt marshes. One or other 
of these is the condition of those rivers, the 
character of which will be understood by all who 
know the nature of such regions, when I call 
them Mangrove rivers, let the woody vegetation 
or jungle consist of what it may: and similar 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 79 

tracts of mangrove^ or of other jungle or thicket, 
occur almost every where in those countries, 
which, if they do not give passage to a river, are 
perpetually washed by the clear green sea. Yet 
no one needs be told, that of all pestiferous soils 
or tracts, none exceed these in destructiveness ; 
the Malaria being never absent from the margins 
of such a river, even when steadily full, and ap- 
pearing at the ebb tide, in the other kind of si- 
tuations, almost at the very moment the ground 
emerges from the water ; a fact a.mply and bit- 
terly ascertained in our naval service, eveiy where. 

Whatever doubts may still exist as to rivers in 
general in our own country, in this case, there is 
no reason whatever to doubt that such streams 
as the Ouse, the Lee, and all others flowing with 
similar difficulty through fertile meadows and 
with a flat vegetable margin, are productive of 
Malaria, because the diseases which attend it are 
common in all those situations. And, a priori, 
we ought to form this conclusion, because the 
margins of such streams in particular, are in 
every sense marshes. And abundant facts, falling 
under my own observation, have shown that such 
diseases as I have formerly adduced in proof of 
Malaria, exist habitually and endemically on the 
borders of similar streams, of even the smallest 



80 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



size ; on those, for example, which flow ahnost 
like artificial canals, through shaven lawns that 
border them with a thin and grassy margin. 
Here indeed, in England, popular opinion decides 
that no such disease can be generated where 
water flows, even should it flow through a pond ; 
but it is one of the cases where popular opinion 
is populai* ignorance or prejudice ; as it is suffi- 
cient for any careful observer to investigate such 
streams and the state of the inhabitants near 
them, in any part of England where they exist, 
to be convinced that the fact is as 1 have here stated 
it. That any one should study to introduce 
such ornaments into his grounds where they do 
not already exist, or select them as places for the 
formation of pleasure grounds and the sites of 
houses, is one of those pernicious errors which 
it is a part of the object of this essay to remove. 

If, in this case, and also in others, I have often 
comparatively neglected foreign countries, and 
entirely omitted the tropical and distant climates, 
to dwell on our own, it is partly because this 
essay is intended chiefly for our own countrymen, 
partly because, with respect to other countries, 
the information to be procured is not sufficiently 
accurate ; and also because, as to the tropical cli- 
mates, I can add nothing from personal observa- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 81 



tion, and could only repeat what is already known 
to those who have attended to this subject, or 
may be found in books, if with some difficulty, 
and in the form of casual remarks, by those who 
are desirous of studying it. 

A canal, partaking partly of the nature of a 
sluggish river and partly of that of a stagnant 
pool, should naturally be esteemed a probable 
source of Malaria ; because its margin possesses, 
or may posses, all the essential qualities of a 
marsh, as a diminution of its waters may expose 
mud impregnated with vegetable matter. This, 
in fact, is the point which we must always have 
in view ; it is the analysis of the whole question. 
If it is not putrifying mud, it is the marshy spot, 
the peculiar vegetatimi, or death of vegetation, 
carried on at a certain point of vacillation be- 
tween earth and water, which is the generative 
cause ; and while this may exist in a hundred 
different characters of ground or situation, and 
while further it is not essential that bulk or space 
should be present, it is easy to see that the busi- 
ness of investigation is, in reality, reduced to a 
very simple principle ; for those at least who are 
gifted with the powers of observation and gene- 
ralization. Let this fact be ascertained by a due 
examination of any spot, and the probability, at 

G 



82 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



least, of Malaria is established : let it further be 
ascertained that certain diseases do belong to 
those situations, taking care also to prove that 
they are endemic or local, and the fact of its pro- 
duction is determined. That such confined spots 
do not act far beyond their immediate limits, 
that they do not produce the same wide effects 
of disease as extensive marshy tracts, does not 
prove that they are not seats of Malaria. That 
which is originally but small in quantity, may, 
by being transported even to a short distance, be 
diluted to nothing, or to absolute inactivity ; while 
further, in all such cases, it will depend on many 
collateral circumstances whether the poison which 
they produce shall extend to any marked or no- 
table distance, or not. This is the common and 
constant error, whence the pernicious nature of 
such confined spots, be their characters Avhat they 
may, is overlooked, or denied. We are not to 
expect that a pool of a few square yards is to 
cause fevers throughout a whole country, while 
also it may be so situated as never, or rarely, to 
be approached. But if it can affect its immediate 
neighbours, or excite but one fever in the course 
of years, the fact is as fully proved as it is of the 
Pontine marshes. 

To recur to the facts in absolute evidence re- 



L^:SS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 83 

specting the noxious powers of canals, it is suffi- 
cient to revert to Holland, respecting which I 
know not that there is any dispute. The canals 
of Batavia, in a far worse climate, are still more 
notorious. As to the few canals of Italy and 
France, lying as they so often do in districts of 
which the atmosphere is almost an entire mass 
of Malaria, it must, in those cases, be fruitless 
to inquire what share their banks or bulwarks 
possess in its production. The facts, as far as 
they are known to me, are not pure enough to 
ground an evidence on from observation, and we 
must be content with the general reasoning a 
priori. If however the canals of France shall 
be held authority for England, or even for Europe 
in general, we have the authority of Monfalcon 
for their pernicious nature ; since he enumerates 
them, generally, all through France, as sources 
of Malaria ; not apparently deeming it necessary 
to adduce such special evidence as I have been 
obliged to seek for, since not encountering the 
same incredulity. 

In our own country, if I have not, personally, 
been able to produce absolute evidence of the 
existence of the appropriate endemics in the vi- 
cinity of canals, I attribute it solely to want of 
means for sufficient personal observation. I have 

G 2 



84 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



little doubt that the fact will be found such ; but 
must be content to point out to others who may 
have opportunities, an inquiry into this part of 
the subject. 

Next to canals, I may rank ditches and drains, 
already noticed as probable causes of the produc- 
tion of Malaria ; and since they possess every 
property of a marsh, and in the very worst form, 
it seems unnecessary to dwell long on a cause so 
obvious. What limitations may be required to 
this as a general rule, are also too obvious to re- 
quire more than the barest notice ; as we can 
have no reason to expect Malaria in the compa- 
ratively clean ditches of upland grounds, where 
neither the drain itself nor its vegetation pos- 
sesses the marshy character. 

But if facts should be required respecting the 
pernicious effects of ditches or drains, Walcheren 
itself seems to furnish unexceptionable evidence ; 
since the soil itself is sandy, being a mixture of 
clay and sand: and it appears to be from the 
drains chiefly, a few pools being also present, 
that its most pestiferous air is produced. That, 
in the Campagna of Rome, which is also a dry 
soil, the Malaria seems similarly to be produced 
by the drains, is a remark which I shall have 
occasion to make in another place. 1 know not 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



85 



indeed why there should be any reason to ques- 
tion the fact at large, nor, unless from decided 
proofs of innoxiousness, to deny it of any parti- 
cular case ; since the chemical condition of a 
drain is so often that of a marsh. It is only for 
those to doubt this, and much more which I have 
here attempted to prove, who are guided by 
words, and to whom the connection between the 
two sounds, marsh and ague, is exclusive as it is 
all-sufficient : unable to generalize the cause, as 
unaccustomed to view any thing in its principles. 
Or, otherwise, these statements are disputed by 
those persons who conceive that an injury is in- 
flicted on them by endeavours to enlighten them ; 
incapable of pardoning even him who would con- 
fer on them a benefit, when, before receiving that, 
. a tacit confession of previous ignorance is neces- 
sary. It is the man who persists in eating the 
wrong end of his asparagus. 

Yet further, where medical men doubt or deny 
in these cases, entraining with them, very natu- 
rally, the general mass, it often arises from that 
inveterate error which I cannot point out too 
often, so essential is it that it should be remedied ; 
namely, the perpetual seeking after ague as the 
sole proof of Malaria, and the as perpetual for- 
getting, or not perceiving, that the fevers of sum- 



86 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

mer^ which they persist in calHng typhus/ are the 
produce of the very circumstances in question. 
Should it be doubted that such is the general 
feehng among our own physicians, as among the 
people, I could prove it, as far at least as a single 
authority, on both sides, of the highest character, 
can prove any thing, by adducing the two greatest 
names in our own country, each in his respective 
department, in proof of this. A sense of pro- 
priety, of which no one will question the neces- 
sity, prevents me from naming those personages, 
as I must, for the same reasons, suppress even 
the name of the place in question. All that 1 
can venture to say is, that after a demonstration 
of the most palpable njature, it was merely ad- 
mitted that the fetid mud thrown out in clearing 
this spot might indeed be unhealthy, and should 
be " corrected by quicklime," but that quoad 
marsh or stagnant water, there was no hazard, 
and that the fevers generated every autumn in 
its vicinity were not its produce, but common 
typhus. 

While on the subject of drains, I must now 
also inquire respecting the drains of towns or 
houses, in which, whether open or close, there is 
no living vegetation ; a subject of some obscurity, 
and on which there is a great deficiency of abso- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 87 

lute evidence. There is^ I need not say, a general 
impression^ I might perhaps safely add, a general 
experience, of their insalubrity ; in proof of 
which I might refer to the municipal reports 
and reforms of towns and cities beyond enume- 
ration, as I might, very especially, refer to the 
history of the improvements of our own capital, 
and the correspondent increase of its health. 
The question is, whether these receptacles pro- 
duce Malaria and the diseases arising from it, or 
whether that which they have been esteemed to 
produce is typhus, or disease of an analogous 
character. There is abundance of general state- 
ments which would indicate that the former is 
the fact, but there are also, as might be expected, 
not wanting many which would show the reverse ; 
a natural enough consequence of the universal 
and long continued carelessness in distinguishing 
between marsh fever and contagious fever. I 
find one however which is decisive, and which 
seems to me quite sufficient in itself to establish 
the former opinion, or to prove that the diseases 
thus produced are the diseases of Malaria. This 
is, that in the Salpetriere at Paris, intermittents 
were common among the residents confined there, 
and that the Malaria having been suspected to 
enter the house from the drains, the disease was. 



88 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



at once and for ever, removed by making altera- 
tions in them. 

Nor, on general principles, is there any reason 
to doubt that this must be true, while it offers 
the readiest explanation of the experienced insa- 
lubrity of such receptacles. A large proportion 
of the contents must always consist of vegetable 
matter ; and it is shown elsewhere, that hemp, 
flax, indigo, coffee, and so forth, in a state of 
putrefaction or something analogous, do produce 
Malaria, independently of any vegetation. And 
that the fevers resulting from drains do occur in 
summer and autumn, or at those seasons when 
Malaria is generated from all its other foci, seems 
to present a further confirmation of their nature 
and causes, since typhus, it is well known, is li- 
mited to no season, and is indeed, in many towns, 
most frequent in winter. 

Such appears to me the conclusion to be drawn 
as to this subject. I do not always expect to con- 
vince others by the facts that have convinced my- 
self; but that must not prevent me from adding, that 
in a house well known to me, where intermittent 
fever was perpetually brought on in an occasional 
visitor of considerable susceptibility, as it had been, 
on former occasions, in another person of the same 
constitution, and during a long course of years 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



89 



no cause could be assigned but the passage of a 
sewer beneath the house, or the existence of a 
well, since both were suspected ; and that in an- 
other similar case, the recurrence of an inter- 
mittent, long cured, seemed as decidedly to have 
been caused by the casual inundation of a cellar. 
Should the absence of vegetation be here held 
an objection, the fact that it can be produced by 
the exposure of damp and naked ground, is put 
out of doubt by a fact related by a physician and 
an author, whose name has escaped me, occurring 
in the West Indies ; where, on the removal of 
some stores which had for some time covered a 
piece of ground, and on exposing it to the light, 
an immediate and severe fever among the work- 
men was the consequence. 

But before quitting this particular class of 
stagnant waters, I must notice one case which 
seems important as illustrating the general prin- 
ciple, as it indeed is with a view to sanitary mea- 
sures, although the exact circumstance has almost 
ceased to exist in England, or occurs now but in 
a few places. The castle of Flamandville, near 
Guellette, in Normandy, is situated on the high 
lands where no endemics of this class are known ; 
but^ being surrounded by a moat, has, for gene- 
rations, been noted for the bad health and de- 



90 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



struction of its inhabitants ; while it may be 
partly accidental as connected with this, that the 
original family has at length been entirely exter- 
minated, undergoing, as is well remembered in 
the neighbourhood, that gradual diminution of 
powers, both of mind and body, which is so 
conspicuous in the Orleannais, and in every part 
of France, in fact, where Malaria is perpetual. 

It is not unlikely that, to similar causes, we 
must often attribute the mortality of the besieged 
in the castles of the feudal times, knowing, as we 
do, that fevers and dysenteries were the causes of 
all this loss of life. Medical men indeed, often, 
or generally, attribute this to want of provisions, 
water, and so forth ; and, as constantly, have 
considered these fevers as the contagious typhus, 
or the fever produced by confined human 
effluvia. 

This error, which I can never omit to notice 
when opportunity olFers, that of mistaking remit- 
tent fever for typhus, an error so universal that 
we trace it through almost every medical work, 
and so common, even to this hour, as to be com- 
mitted every day by nine-tenths of practitioners, 
or more, is one which, while it confuses the 
whole history of endemic, as well as of epidemic 
fevers, has also produced a train of incalculable 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



91 



evilsj in the cure, with even far deeper and wider 
ones in the business of prevention. If medical 
history is full of glaring examples of this in our 
own day, so it is from similarly false views that 
we must now read with distrust, almost all that 
is recorded of the diseases of armies in ancient 
times, and very much of what belongs to mo- 
dern warfare under the same head. Hence, we 
cannot fail to suspect that the mortality to which 
I am here alluding, arose from the causes that I 
have stated, assisted, as is invariably the case, by 
the various collateral evils which attended both 
the besiegers and the besieged, though we can- 
not very properly dispute without facts more 
particular. But while it is not very obvious 
why typhus should be generated out of the habits 
of a baronial castle, where every defender was 
almost for ever in the air, it is abundantly easy 
to understand how remittent and dysentery might 
arise from confinement within a ditch, aided per- 
haps by scanty food. This is very nearly the 
recent case of the Penitentiary, so long and so 
improperly the subject of controversy ; a case in 
which not the slightest doubt ought for a mo- 
ment to have existed, either with respect to the 
cause or the disease, and where a remedy was 
sought by letting in that Malaria, which it should 



92 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



have been the object to exclude^ or else destroy, 
as far as possible, after an admission that could 
not be prevented. 

And further, this view is confirmed by the ana- 
logous consequences occurring to the besieged, 
and very frequently also to the besiegers, in the 
case of modern fortifications. There is often the 
same bad or scanty food, with similar fatigue and 
exposure in the night as well as in the day ; 
while the works to be defended are either sur- 
rounded by water, or, if the ditch be not wet, it is 
seldom truly dry in those flat countries which 
are the most frequent seats of fortified towns. 
And, in fact, even in peace, these fortified places 
are very generally unhealthy, and productive of 
the diseases of Malaria, as will be discovered on 
inquiry by any who will be at the trouble of 
making it ; while it is scarcely less easy to ascer- 
tain, that, in most of these cases, the focus of the 
disease is in the ditch, and that the attack, or the 
fever, falls first on the sentries who mount the 
night guards on the ravelins or the glacis. This 
was notorious in Malta during our first occupa- 
tion of the works of Valetta, whatever the fact 
may be at present; though, in that particular 
case, as I shall hereafter attempt to explain, it is 
not certain that the ditch actually produced the 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



93 



Malaria which occupied it^ and which affected 
the guards of those particular posts so remark- 
ably. But almost every fortification in Flanders 
and Holland^ and many in France, will afford 
evidence enough of this nature ; as will Ports- 
mouth also, in our own country, if I am not very 
much mistaken, even at present, though much 
improved of late by means which I need not here 
detail. 

To mention but two facts more, one of which 
particularly proves the insalubrity of such works, 
it had been suspected that the fevers at Bourg en 
Bresse, which, down to the middle of the last 
century, had so tormented the inhabitants that 
half of them were incapacitated for a third of the 
year, arose from the ditches of its fortifications. 
These were consequently filled up, with the 
result of effecting an entire change, in the dis- 
appearance of those fevers. Lastly, it had been 
observed that at Havre de Grace, the soldiers 
were seized with headach and giddiness within 
five minutes after approaching the ditch, with 
the usual consequences of fever, and that fever, 
of course, of a violent character. Whether this 
fortification has been reformed or not, I am igno- 
rant, but it is a case strongly in point ; while it 
also serves to prove, incidentally, that a very brief 



94 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



exposure to this poison is sufficient to produce 
the effects, and further, that the effect immedi- 
ately follows the application. 

The last class of situations requiring notice, 
includes all still or stagnant waters, from the 
largest lake to the smallest pond ; and it will be 
found to comprise an immense number of local- 
ities in our own country, respecting which also 
there is perhaps less popular suspicion than with 
regard to any other species of ground generative 
of Malaria. 

A lake cannot, it may be thought, be other- 
wise noxious in this sense, than as it may contain 
marshy margins, or be skirted by the wet allu- 
vial tracts, formerly noticed, and generally found 
at the entrances of its streams ; and I need not 
therefore dwell minutely on that particular 
subject. 

But it requires observation to detect a thing 
even so obvious as this ought to be. The general 
purity of the waters of a lake, added to its bril- 
liancy, often to its romantic or picturesque cha- 
racter, and not a little aided by poetical feehngs 
or metaphysical prejudices, commonly remove all 
suspicion of this nature ; and, after the physician 
interested in investigating this subject, it is per- 
haps the painter, or the geologist alone, who will 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



95 



discover^ or even see, along the shores of such a 
piece of water, the particular ground which is a 
cause of suspicion or a source of disease. What- 
ever, with other views, these latter may detect, it 
is not the splendour of the scenery, the limpid 
purity of the waters, nor even the rocky preci- 
pices or pebbled shores, that will be, to the for- 
mer, a warranty of health and security, if he 
finds these limpid waters encroaching occasion- 
ally on a meadow, or the gravelly margin shal- 
lowed by accumulating reeds and water plants, 
or the water lily reposing in some creek, undis- 
turbed by the waves. Here, he will see reasons 
for suspicion, even in the most romantic lakes of 
an alpine region ; and should they lie in a warm 
climate, his suspicions will be too commonly 
justified. 

And they will also be confirmed by a great 
mass of facts derived from the Lakes of Switzer- 
land and Italy; there being abundant records 
even of severe epidemics in these countries and 
in such situations ; independently of the ordinary 
endemics, and of a permanent bad state of health 
in the inhabitants, which can scarcely fail to be 
known, even to general travellers in those coun- 
tries, of any observation. How the fact stands 
in our own country in this particular case, I am 



96 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

unable to say ; while, though such elFects might 
possibly ])e found in Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland, they could scarcely be expected in Scot- 
land, where our chief lakes lie, on account of the 
low temperature of the climate. 

When a lake lies in a flat country, a case of 
which our own Whittlesea mere oiFers an exam- 
ple, it is much more easy to understand how it 
should be a source of Malaria, without further 
explanation ; since not merely its margins, but 
much of the surrounding land, must possess 
those qualities which are pernicious. Such is 
the natural history of a large portion of Hungary, 
noted for its insalubrity, and such also is that of 
many considerable tracts in France, often refer- 
red to in this essay on account of their highly 
pestiferous nature ; the waters in question, of 
different sizes, amounting often to many hun- 
dreds within a small space, and including there- 
fore what must be called pools, while they form 
the basis of a very profitable inland fishery, regu- 
larly farmed and cultivated. Respecting these, I 
must add, that they are there esteemed fully as 
poisonous as marshes ; a fact inferred from com- 
paring two unhealthy and extensive districts of 
these different characters. 

But it must also be said in explanation, (a view 



t 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 97 

is important, as it concerns all waters of 
this nature, even to pools,)" that in France, it is 
supposed that the Malaria is not solely produced 
by the vegetating marsh, but is disengaged from 
the mud which the summer leaves dry, (a fact 
which I must notice again) and that it also 
escapes from the bottom and through the water, 
accompanying the air which is so notedly ex- 
tricated in those cases. And in confirmation of 
this, it is said, that while such pools retain a con- 
siderable depth of water, or whenever their banks 
are steep, no Malaria is produced, but that it 
appears in the reverse cases, or, either on the di- 
minution of the water in depth, or on its retiring 
from the shores. The same facts, I should ob- 
serve, have often also been noticed in the West 
Indies ; while a very strong case, illustrating 
this particular cause, is stated by Senac, in 
France, where, in a town previously unaffected 
by fevers, a violent epidemic was produced, in 
consequence of an unusual evaporation which 
exposed a large portion of the bottom of a lake. 
From these facts it is an obvious inference, that 
in warm climates, at least, whatever may be the 
case in our own, tranquil or stagnant water is 
unsafe in any form, and that a vegetating mar- 
gin is not rigidly necessary to its pernicious qua- 

H 



98 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



lities ; though it cannot be doubted that the evil 
is materially diminished by cutting off this addi- 
tional source of Malaria. 

With respect to other still or stagnant waters, 
including mill-dams on all scales, from some 
hundred acres to a few square yards, and com- 
prising also fish-ponds, artificial and ornamental 
lakes and canals, together with casual pools 
formed in uneven ground, or, as near London, 
in old gravel pits, there seems, independently of 
their sizes, but one marked difference among 
them ; and that is, whether they do or do not 
transmit a running stream, and in wliat quantity 
as it relates to the renovation of the mass of wa- 
ter which they include. In mill-dams, this is a 
fundamental property, though the renovation 
varies in almost every instance. It is generally 
the case also with ornamental waters and fish- 
ponds, but seldom or never happens with the 
remainder of the pools classed under this head. 

Now here, as in the case of rivers, it is a popu- 
lar conviction that there can be no " danger," as 
it is expressed, when there is a running stream, 
or a renovation of the water ; an error of the 
greatest importance, as I shall shortly demon- 
strate. If, among the general mass, this is a 
mere opinion of rote, the usual ground of belief 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 99 

with the vulgar^ there arc not wanting among 
others^ reasons^ such as they are^ for this piece of 
philosophy. All the danger apprehended is in- 
variably from stagnant, absolutely stagnant and 
putrescent water ; or it is considered that either 
the smell is the criterion of the hazard, or that 
the poison and the smell are one thing. Thus, a 
water covered with duckweed, or crowded with 
potomogetons, nymphaeas, and other floating and 
absolutely aquatic plants, is the exclusive object 
of terror ; while no fear or suspicion is ever en- 
tertained respecting a limpid and apparently pure 
water, whether at rest in a green lawn, or gliding 
quietly along its grassy and poachy margin. 

If I once thought that a heresy so wicked and 
an alarm so absurd as I have experienced the 
contrary belief to be, was my own exclusively, it 
was for want of reading ; and I am now most 
glad to find myself supported by Monfalcon, 
though how far he also may be accused of be- 
longing to the class of terrorists, I cannot pre- 
tend to foresee. " Pieces d'eau d'agr^ment 

lacs artificiels," such are conspicuously in his 
catalogue of evils ; and with such aid I may 
therefore boldly continue to defend my own opi- 
nions, while I would gladly not have been able to 
produce the proofs which, even now, I shall 

H 2 



100 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



leave to be conjectured. If he refers pointedly 
to the artificial water of Chantilly^ as the source 
of frequent and serious epidemics^ so does ano- 
ther authority, D'Audebert, ascribe some pecu- 
liarly severe intermittents occurring in his expe- 
rience, to a similar piece of water, and a similar 
cause. On the subject of such ornamental pieces 
of water, however small,! could not indeed wish for 
stronger testimony than that which respects what 
s called the " canal" at Versailles, almost a mere 
fish-pond ; and which, like the similar "piece d'agre- 
ment" at Chantilly, is noted for producing sum- 
mer fevers and intermittents ; so noted as to have 
been quoted by Monfalcon as a special example 
of the pestiferous nature of such spots ; while I 
have seen the very effect produced, and instanta- 
neously, on an English visitor to that " Tibur" 
of the antient monarchy, and that effect being as 
inveterate a tertian as I ever witnessed. 

We have not enough of pure experience yet, 
to decide whether water, in all cases, emitting 
smell simply from decaying plants immersed in 
it, or water confined by walls or clean earthen 
banks, and producing purely aquatic or floating 
plants, does produce Malaria, independently of 
the exposure of its mud, or of a diminution 
which allows the air to escape from the bottom. 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. lOl 

It would, however, be very surprising were such 
water innoxious ; since it ought to be indilFerent 
whether the vegetable decomposition is produced 
under this peculiar mode, or in the plants while 
attached to the land. It would not therefore be 
safe to conclude, that by walling in the water of 
a pond, and thus destroying the vegetating mar- 
gin, we have ensured safety, though we have ex- 
cluded one source of the poison ; and hence I 
should not consider this alteration in the canal of 
St. James's park a complete remedy, although 
my own proposal ; since it is notorious for the 
abundant produce of aquatic plants, causing, in 
autumn, an even insufferable stench. All I can 
say is, that if in its present condition, abounding 
in both causes of Malaria, it does not generate 
fevers, it is the only exception in the whole world, 
at least wherever the climate equals that of 
England ; a fact undoubtedly which ought to be 
a source of great self-congratulation. Whether 
the pond in St, James's square also, forming so 
refreshing a receptacle for its statue, claims the 
same English exemption or not, must be decided 
by Monfalcon ; as 1 am not courageous enough 
to think that such an Italian substance as Mala- 
ria can exist in the center of the English capital. 
But to finish with this particular question, we do 



102 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



know^ from ample experience, that Malaria oc- 
curs in abundance when there is no smell and no 
putrescence, and that the process of vegetable 
putrefaction, in the ordinary sense of that term, 
is not necessary to its production. There is good 
reason therefore why we should shun the vicinity 
of putrescent and vegetating waters, but there is 
infinite hazard in rendering this doctrine and this 
terror exclusive. 

To prove that mill-dams, though transmitting 
large streams, ought to be injurious, from the 
frequently marshy nature of their margins, would 
be to repeat what has been said before, respect- 
ing the priori proofs on this subject in general ; 
and by the same laws we may judge of the other 
kinds of still water included under this head. To 
prove it by facts, to prove the actual production 
of Malaria, in some place or other, and even in a 
vast number of places, by every kind of pool or 
still water here mentioned, would be abundantly 
easy to myself, and will be scarcely less so to any 
one who will inquire respecting the endemic dis- 
eases of those who reside in such vicinities. I 
might here easily fill some pages with local in- 
stances ; but I shall be content with naming a 
very few ; selecting such as are either known to 
others as well as myself, or that may easily 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 103 



be verified by any one still inclined to doubt. 
That similar condemnation has been passed uni- 
versally on mill-ponds or dams in America^ by 
Volney, may perhaps assist in satisfying those to 
whom the authority of a strong name is neces- 
sary, or who receive with faith from a stranger 
and a foreign country, what they are unwilling to 
believe from him who prophesies where he is 
known. 

About the iron district of Glamorganshire, 
there are numerous large mill-dams constructed 
for the supply of machinery, and there is not one 
of these, in the lower grounds, which is not noto- 
riously attended by the endemic ill-health of all 
the immediate residents and visitants, consisting 
in the diseases already mentioned ; of which, in 
consequence of some peculiarities which I do not 
pretend to explain, the Neuralgia of the face is 
extremely common. And as the surrounding 
country is high and hilly, and singularly healthy, 
as are the people in general, from their state of 
industry and opulence, these local exceptions are 
the more conspicuous ; being indeed so remark- 
able as to have attracted the attention of the 
people themselves to the causes. And when I 
point out the pernicious nature of such recepta- 
cles of watei", so very little suspected in our own 



104 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



country^ and least of all likely to be suspected, 
even by medical men, when in a cold or elevated 
district, I may, from the report of an intelligent 
medical friend, name, specifically, the village of 
Hirwain, in this county, where, about four years 
ago, one-sixth of the inhabitants were affected by 
intermittent at- the same time, and from this very 
cause. 

These are waters on a large scale, and from the 
size of their streams, rapidly renovated ; offering a 
sufficient proof that such renovation is of no value. 
In truth, there is no reason why it should be so ; 
since were this as rapid as possible, the pond would 
even then be but a river, and it has been shewn 
that rivers so circumstanced are common sources 
of Malaria and disease. A mill-dam at Southend, 
near Lewisham, affords another example of a si- 
milar nature, on sf small scale, and within the 
reach of easy verification ; while it is also an in- 
stance apphcable to fish-ponds and other kinds of 
still water similarly circumstanced. Here, the 
poorer inhabitants in particular, are notedly sub- 
ject to intermittent as well as autumnal fever, 
while they bear marks of glandular visceral af- 
fections, and are reported to die of the conse- 
fpiences of those disorders. To have seen the fit 
of intermittent invariably produced in a suscepti- 



LESS SUSPECtED OF MALARIA. 105 



ble individual by an approach to this pond^ hun- 
dreds of times, and always within a stated dis- 
tance of time from the approximation, completes 
an evidence which cannot be controverted. 

And if my chief reason for pointing out this 
otherwise insignificant spot, is the facility of exa- 
mination which it offers to the inhabitants of 
London, it will be useful to notice here the whole 
valley of the Ravensburn, with the communicat- 
ing low lands, including the villages of Lee and 
Lewisham, as affording examples, within reach, 
of the greater number of the less obvious class of 
situations producing Malaria, which 1 have been 
attempting to describe. The use of such examples 
is, that as there is a peculiar physiognomy, if it 
may so be called, attached to all such places, the 
power of distinguishing that is more easily ac- 
quired by a single example than by pages of 
description. 

I may add here another instance, from the mill 
dam of a paper mill in Hertfordshire ; after the 
formation of which, the workmen became subject 
in a most serious degree, to remittent fevers, which 
were, before that, unknown ; and as the ground 
in this particular instance resembled that of an 
ornamental park, as did the water itself, it may 
suffice to prove what I have advanced on that 



106 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



particular subject ; although it would be easy to 
confirm this by analogous instances adduced from 
many of the dressed pleasure grounds ornamented 
by water, which skirt the Thames, near Walton 
and Chertsey, and which occur also in a hundred 
other places : the produce of a well known im- 
proving gardener, or else of his progeny ; to the 
demerits of whom, as the sources of an endemic 
disease of English landscape, far, very far yet 
from being extirpated, an eruptive contagion blot- 
ting our fair island, it is no small addition that 
they have, in founding ponds which their vanity 
mistook for rivers, and in converting rivers into 
Dutch canals, brought the intermittent to our 
doors under cover of the breeze of the violet, and 
formed pest houses of fever where we study to 
retire for coolness from the heats of the autumn. 
This is to manufacture a Batavia, in defiance of 
nature ; to court disease through deformity and 
expence ; the evil less, it is true, but of the same 
kind, and incurred as certainly. 

Here is another case in point ; for I believe 
that it is only by such specific facts that popular 
conviction, less amenable to generalizations, will 
ever be produced. In a high and formerly healthy 
part of Hampshire, the name of which, for the 
reasons often here assigned, I must reserve, a 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



107 



clear and quick stream was daiiinied not long ago, 
both for ornament and use. The immediate con- 
sequence was seen in the production of evening 
mists, before unknown. That mist indeed is not 
in itself Malaria, but it is a very common atten- 
dant, as it is a conductor ; while it is always a 
suspicious circumstance, for obvious reasons. 
But the proof was completed by the production 
of fevers, and in autumn ; as utiknown before as 
the mists. A French or an Itahan physician 
would be at no loss here in deciding; but the 
Enghsh apothecary, having no term but typhus 
for a destructive fever, decides accordingly ; never 
questioning himself as to the origin of the con- 
tagion of which he dreams, nor ever recollecting 
to wonder why it should not spread to the atten- 
dants, when the patient is covered with petechiae ; 
and thus the public goes on, creating more mill 
dams, more fish-ponds, more fictitious rivers after 
the models of Brown, and more fevers. To 
proceed. 

In one instance, while I need not quote the 
particular place, the recurrence of an intermit- 
tent fever in a susceptible subject was caused re- 
peatedly, by merely entering a garden containing 
a pond of the fashion of King William's day, 
dedicated to gold fishes and river gods. And 
that the same effect is produced, bv similar ponds 



108 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



or canals in these and similar situations, in many 
of the ornamental grounds and gardens cf rural 
habitations, particularly in the flatter tracts of 
England^ is a fact which has at length been con- 
firmed to me by many individuals who had at 
first rejected the suggestion : such persons now 
recollecting what had not originally struck them, 
that their families were always unhealthy, and, 
in particular, that their servants were so, while 
residing at their country houses, though free from 
such complaints in their town residences. And 
w^hen, during the last summer in particular, it 
has been notorious, that not only numerous indi- 
viduals, but entire femilies have experienced fever 
under change of temporary residence, sometimes 
in their own country houses, at others in the se- 
veral watering places situated amid the circum- 
stances here pointed out as suspicious, there seems 
nothing wanting to produce conviction ; since 
most assuredly these fevers were not the conta- 
gious typhus. 

On the subject of the smallest, and the least 
suspected, perhaps, of all kinds of ponds, I shall 
commence by quoting one instance, because it 
was notorious to the medical establishment of 
Woolwich in those days, and because there are, 
doubtless, officers and surgeons both, alive still 
to confirm it. This was a pond occupying an 
old gravel pit on the common, close to a house 



LESS SUSPLCTED Oi MALARIA. lOl) 

beloDging to the late Dr. Hutton, and occvipied 
by General Stehelin ; its whole extent being but 
a few square yards. It was remarked, for a long 
course of years, that the inhabitants of this house 
sulFered under perpetual agues ; and it was not 
until this pond was destroyed by the alteration 
of that common, that the disease disappeared, 
and for ever. 

This is perhaps sufficient proof as to this class 
of stagnant waters ; but, if I mistake not, it will 
be found that the occurrence of ague and fever 
together with other ill health, in numerous places 
where the gravel pits of commons are filled with 
water, is the consequence of this very cause, and 
that in reality, these situations about London, and 
elsewhere also, so often selected on account of the 
imagined wholesomeness of their gravelly soils, 
are very general, and not less unsuspected, causes 
of ill health : of those obscure and teazing dis- 
orders already mentioned which are known by 
this vague term, and further, of positive fevers 
and intermittents. And it was not only from re- 
flecting on that case at Woolwich common, but 
on other analogous ones, that I originally gave 
the opinion, that provided the vicinity is suffici- 
ently near, and other conditions favourable, there 
is no spot of water, or, what is the fact, of marshy 



110 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



vegetation, so small, as not to be capable of pro- 
ducing Malaria and disease. I have shown al- 
ready, that in cases of distant transportation, the 
poison must be highly diluted, and, therefore also, 
must be applied in a very small quantity ; and on 
every chemical, even arithmetical, principle, it 
must be indilFerent whether that small portion 
which acts, is part of a large mass, or is, itself, 
the whole. If it be a grain weight, or a cubic 
inch, out of ten thousand, which is applied, or if 
there be but one grain or one inch generated, and 
the whole is called in^o action, the effects must be 
the same, chemically ; while this is a chemical 
operation, and the last case is the case in question. 

To the inhabitants of London, I might easily 
point out numerous places, even in their own vi- 
cinity, offering illustrations of these several causes 
of Malaria, and more ; as it would be abundantly 
easy also to indicate them in all the southern and 
flatter counties ; while an inquirer can always sa- 
tisfy himself as to the facts, by simply inquiring 
among medical men, respecting, in particular, 
their autumnal practice. To the same readers, 
and for the same purpose, an easy verification, 
I might, but for obvious reasons, have quoted 
a well known house, peculiarly situated in 
the neighbourhood of London, as having 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. Ill 

been a most noted focus of ague to almost every 
one of its inhabitants daring a long course of 
years. And I intended to quote it as an instance 
of Malaria produced by some small ponds with 
a grassy margin^ used for watering cattle ; were 
there not some imperfection in this case, arising 
from its position as to the meadows of the 
Thames ; though I am still inclined to seek the 
cause in these ponds, as the corresponding and 
neighbouring houses in the same vicinity, and 
with the same aspect, do not suffer in the same 
manner. 

I must here add a remark on the production 
of Malaria, which, if not rigidly belonging to 
the present enumeration, could not well have 
found a place any %vhere else, while it is too im- 
portant to be omitted. If the occurrence has 
chiefly been noticed in other countries, there is 
not wanting evidence respecting it in our own ; 
while the more generally the fact is known, the 
more will it probably be confirmed ; as happens 
in every case of this nature, where, until the ex- 
act cause of such a disease is pointed out, it con- 
tinues to be viewed as one of the inexplicable 
and necessary accidents of life, or is perhaps at- 
tributed to some false or imaginary cause. 

This fact is, that fevers, and therefore it must 



112 SOn.S AND SITUATIONS 

be presumed Malaria, are often produced, and 
frequently in great severity, when pasture lands 
are for the first time broken up for cultivation. 
The evidence as to this, is as abundant as it is 
unquestionable. Volney points it out as almost 
invariable in America ; and so does Rush, as I 
have noticed, particularly where woods have also 
been cleared. In the West Indies, very generally, 
it has long been known that this is a most dan- 
gerous operation, since it is the almost universal 
experience of two centuries ; and Cassan describes 
it as sometimes producing fevers that resemble 
an absolute plague ; the labourers even dying on 
the spot if they attempt to remain at night oji 
the ground which they have broken up in the 
day. 

Why this should be the fact, if it cannot be 
very precisely explained, is not at least more dif- 
ficult than most of what else belongs to this sub- 
ject ; since there is a quantity of vegetable mat- 
ter killed, and therefore submitted to decomposi- 
tion ; and it would be well worth the trouble of 
those whose local situations give them the means, 
to inquire whether this, and many other analo- 
gous agricultural processes, now little suspected, 
are not the causes of the fevers which sometimes 
appear in rural situations in such an inexplicable 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 113 

manner, when these cannot be better accounted 
for by Stagnant waters of various kinds, or by 
such neglected spots as I have here been pointing 
out. The remark is of value, be the solution 
what it may ; because the remedy w ill be found 
in breaking up such lands in June, or in May, if 
the summer be the necessary period, or, what is 
preferable, in the middle of winter ; since the 
decomposition will then take place at a time in 
which experience has shown that Malaria is 
scarcely generated in our own country, nor in- 
deed, generally, in Europe. In the case of lands 
recently recovered by drainage, this precaution is 
peculiarly deserving of attention, because in this 
case the danger is greatest; and the same is 
equally true of woods, the mere felling of which 
sometimes disengages or produces Malaria, as is 
a much more certain consequence where, as in 
America, and as I have elsewhere noticed, these 
woods are broken up for cultivation. 

On the question of drainage, there are also 
some remarkable facts, which though nothing 
very definite can as yet be offered on the subject, 
from want of sufficient observations^ I must also 
notice here, not very well knowing in what other 
place in this essay they could be introduced. 
The bare fact, as stated in the simplest manner, 

I 



114 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



is, that lands subjected to drainage, and appa- 
rently laid dry, sometimes even for the very pur- 
pose of subduing or exterminating Malaria, have 
become even more noxious than before ; or that 
even where no previous diseases had existed in 
the vicinity of such land, they had appeared after 
it had been drained for the purposes of agricul- 
ture. Among other remarkable instances, this 
appears to have been true, at different periods, of 
the Campagna of Rome, as far as the facts can 
be ascertained by comparing the different accounts 
of Italian writers ; while, in speaking of that 
spot, I have been obliged to notice this circum- 
stance, as it relates to the comparative condition 
of Rome in the times of antiquity and in the 
present day. But among some more pointed 
facts of this nature which admit of no dispute, 
such was the effect of draining the marsh of the 
Chartreuse near Bordeaux. A succession of bad 
fevers, before unknown, commenced immediately 
upon the drainage, showing themselves first in 
that part of the town which lay nearest to the 
land reformed, and lasting through many years ; 
proving so severe in 1805, that twelve thousand 
people were affected, out of whom three thou- 
sand died in five months. 

To explain why this should happen, in any 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



115 



particular case, would require a precise knowledge 
of the individual circumstances belonging to each 
spot where it is said to have occurred ; as it is 
probable that many of the cases would require 
distinct solutions. At present, and in this general 
view, 1 can only suggest a few of the probable 
causes ; while those who may have opportunities 
may possibly, not only be able to apply them, but 
also discover others which, from want of expe- 
rience, I am unable even to conjecture. 

It is not difficult to understand that a swamp 
in which the water is so deep as to impede the 
growth of as many plants as a drier surface would 
carry, will produce proportionally less of the 
poison in question ; and that a similar diminution 
or under proportion of Malaria will attend such 
a tract of land if it should contain many pools 
or spots divested of all vegetation. In such a 
case, we can conceive a certain state of drainage, 
such as to increase the vegetating surface, with- 
out being at the same time complete enough to 
check the production of Malaria; or a small 
quantity of poisonous marsh might thus become 
a large surface of wet and noxious meadow land. 

Thus also, it is not difficult to imagine how 
the drainage of a lake attended by a noxious 

I 2 



116 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



margin^ might increase the extent of such a de- 
scription of soil, though the water itself were 
diminished or exterminated, and a considerable 
tract of dry land gained also to cultivation. 

It is a much more delicate and difficult ques- 
tion, whether there is not also a certain state of 
moisture, much inferior to absolute wetness, 
which is more favourable to that peculiar vege- 
table decomposition whence Malaria is generated; 
but while some facts seem to show that this is 
true, there is nothing sufficiently decisive to 
prove, what also we have not at present the 
means of rendering as probable as might be 
wished, from not knowing enough of the process 
itself, and of the nature of this poisonous matter. 
When it is asserted that land absolutely dry does 
generate Malaria, as has been said of many places, 
it is necessary, before we can admit this, to be 
very certain that, in these instances, it is not 
transported from some other place ; or that, in 
such dry land, there are not ditches and drains 
left from the operations by which it has been laid 
thus dry. In reality, as I have already remarked, 
it is from these poisonous repositories of a vege- 
tation equally active in growth and in decompo- 
sition, that the Malaria of drained meadow lands 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 117 



seems to be very often produced ; while, if there 
are any other causes, they must be left for future 
inquiry. 

Yet there is a tolerably obvious one, though 
how far it may have been applicable to any of 
the known cases I cannot conjecture ; and this 
is, the exposure of the mud of pools, or of that 
bottom which was, before that, to whatever limited 
extent, and however dispersedly, covered by 
water ; since this, as I shall soon show more fully 
than I have yet done, is an ascertained cause of 
Malaria. In such a case indeed, the evil might 
be expected to be transitory, and to be limited 
perhaps to one season ; though it is not difficult 
also to see, that as such spots mu^t be the most 
depressed parts of the recovered land, they might 
easily, in successive winters, retain water, so as, 
again, on the recurrence of the summer heats, to 
undergo the same pernicious condition. If also, 
in such cases of drainage, the cultivation of any 
portions should follow, it becomes evidently an 
example under the rule already discussed ; ac- 
cording to which, lands newly broken up generate 
the poison in question. 

I shall now terminate these details, which I 
havenevertheless abbreviated, perhaps injuriously, 
by the omission of innumerable local facts and 



118 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



proofs, and of much that I might have inchided 
respecting foreign countries. Such minuteness 
would however find a better place in a work on 
the geography of Malaria ; a work than which 
there cannot be a much greater desideratum at 
present in physic. Whatever detail I have al- 
ready indulged in^ I cannot consider it greater 
than the importance of the subject demanded ; 
because it is only by rendering the public aware 
of the causes of their diseases, that they can be 
taught to eradicate, by activity, and on principle, 
that which will otherwise only yield, as it has al- 
ready done to so great an extent, before the slow 
progress of general intelligence and improvement, 
or else to avoid, as far as possible, the causes of 
disease, where the soil itself is incurable or diffi- 
cult of cure. But the value of such precautions, 
like that of the present opinions, will not be ap- 
preciated till other views than the present ones 
are taken, of the causes of the common fevers of 
summer and autumn, or till physicians, if that 
shall ever happen, coincide with myself in be- 
lieving that the most frequent, perhaps the gene- 
ral, sources of these among ourselves, and espe- 
cially in the country, are the soils and situations 
which I have here described or noticed. It will 
indeed be a previously necessary step, to djstin- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 119 

guish between such fevers and contagious ones, 
or between typhus and the fevers of Malaria ; a 
distinction, however, which if as yet spreading 
but slowly in the public medical mind, if indeed 
even that can be said, must at length become 
understood, when it will be acted on as mecha- 
nically as much else has been in physic after la- 
bouring under the same difficulties ; since it is 
not through reasoning, but from imitation, that 
knowledge is here spread, while in establishing a 
new opinion or fact, chance or fortune must also 
coincide with the labour of the original pro- 
pounder. 

If I have already noticed the general ill health 
and the various disorders exclusive of mere inter- 
mittents, which are the produce of these neglect- 
ed or unsuspected places, it will be of much more 
general importance if it shall be established, as 
seems to myself the fact, that all our common 
summer fevers are the produce of unsuspected 
Malaria, and not, as is generally supposed, of 
mere heat, or, when occurring in autumn, of 
some mystical and unknown influence of the pre- 
ceding summer, or, as is a common opinion, 
somewhat better founded, of the eft'ect of this 
on the biliary system merely. And if, in the 
country, where it is much easier to purify the 



120 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



evidence, and after many years of watchfulness, 
in various districts and places, it has proved to 
my experience that such fevers prevail or predo- 
minate wherever there are those obscure causes 
of Malaria which I have pointed out, (supposing 
that more decided and acknowledged ones are 
absent,) and that they can almost always, with 
care, be traced to some such causes, while they 
scarcely if ever occur in places absolutely free 
from ^such suspicion, I cannot help thinking 
that it is a fact which will be confirmed by the 
observations of others, when the same attention 
shall be turned to the subject. To ascertain the 
exact truth will be valuable ; because it will be a 
great step in the prevention of evil that may at 
least be diminished, if not removed. 

It is a philosophical evil in the mean time, and 
will probably long prove an obstacle to the in- 
quiry after truth in this case, that physicians have 
established so many doubtful or fanciful causes 
of fever ; to discover or imagine any one of 
which is held sufficient, even any those who 
inquire into causes, to satisfy the observer and 
supersede all further questions. And if among 
such causes, there are real ones, it is also too 
often forgotten that these are auxiliary or predis- 
posing ones, not essential ; leading to errors even 



LESS SUSPECTED OF xMALARIA. 



121 



more difficult to correct. In other departments, 
philosophy would act more cautiously and more 
precisely : in some points, even physic proceeds 
more philosophically. Malaria is a proved, de- 
monstrated cause of one class of fever, as conta- 
gion is of another ; and if in the latter case, Ave 
labour to discover the insidious or obscure roads 
by which it has been communicated, so should it 
be our object, equally, to seek for Malaria where- 
ever it may lie hid, and not to rest content with 
those vague and fanciful, or doubtful causes of 
the fevers of this nature which are commonly 
received : and for little other apparent reason 
than because our ponds and ditches do not, like 
the marshes of Italy or the woods of Africa, de- 
stroy their tens of thousands, or perhaps because 
of indolence and habit, superadded to ignorance 
and want of reasoning. 

If I have insinuated that there are tracts of 
country, places, in our own island, where fevers, 
that is to say, the fever under review, in any of its 
forms, is unknown or nearly so, and if the same 
is true of many districts in various parts of the 
continent, even in countries where other tracts 
are notorious for such diseases, it would not be 
so difficult as it would be tedious, to point out, 
even now, the very places, to a considerable ex- 



122 SOILS AND SITUATIONS 

tent ; while it would be found that these were 
dry and elevated lands under a perfect natural 
drainage, or similar moorland or corn districts, 
or peculiar situations near the sea, of the same 
character, or districts uniting a particular distri- 
bution of the surface to a peculiar nature of sub- 
soil, or general stratification, or rock ; well known 
to the geologists of our island, as well as to agri- 
culturists, for their singular freedom from water, 
and the reasons for which can often be explained 
by the former. 

And if, as is the fact, such tracts are exposed 
to the same heats and the same vicissitudes of 
temperature as those in which these fevers occur 
or prevail, if the people are the same, and their 
occupations and modes of life similar, and if the 
only difference be, as is the fact, the presence of 
water in some manner, and often very trivial in 
quantity and extent, while as little noticed or sus- 
pected as it is thus trivial, then have we reason 
to conclude, or at least to conjecture with a high 
degree of plausibility, that this, the only differ- 
ence, is the cause of disease which we are in 
search of ; while that is confirmed by every cir- 
cumstance relating to the production of Malaria 
which has already passed under review. If it 
would be tedious to point out the tracts of land 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 123 

to which I am here alluding, it will also perhaps 
he much hetter to leave the inquiry to others, 
each for that division of country hest known to 
himself ; while, with these hints, such an investi- 
gation will not only be easy, but will produce to 
the investigator, a conviction which could not be 
effected by any detail founded on my own obser- 
vations. 

And if, on the great scale, or in the extreme 
cases, such as in Holland, (where, to such re- 
cords as that of Walcheren, or of Sluys, in which, 
according to Lind, the Scotch regiment quartered 
there buried its whole number in three years, 
hundreds of similar examples might be added,) 
the average of life is proved, by the tables of in- 
surance and survivorship, as I shall hereafter 
show, to be low to an appalling degree, it will 
not less, if less conspicuously, be found in our 
own island, that this average is exceedingly un- 
equal, and that, in every case where the fact has 
yet been examined, it is precisely in the dry situa- 
tions which I have been describing that it is 
highest, while, reversely, it become gradually 
lower as water, in almost any form, is present : 
almost emulating Holland, and in a very obvious 
gradation, as we come down to that state of the 
soil where Malaria and its diseases are no longer 



124 



SOILS AKD SITUATIONS 



a question of dispute. That our own tables have 
not yet been corrected, as justice demands, 
such considerations, is no proof that the fact is 
not as I have here stated it ; as the carelessness 
with which this subject has been hitherto treated, 
is well known to those who have attended to po- 
litical arithmetic ; while some recent attempts at 
greater accuracy, proving also, as they do, the 
increased public longevity, give hopes that the 
whole of the subject will, ere long, undergo that 
review which is so imperiously called for. 

If I feel while I write, what I have for so many 
years experienced in personal discussion, that it is 
difficult or impossible to convince the multitude, 
and even medical men, that in such cases as those 
which I am now discussing, water, or a moist 
soil, can produce disease and fever, or that it is 
in reality a source of Malaria when in such trifling 
quantities, or under such common and neglected 
circumstances, similar doubts, or repugnance, or 
ignorance, have prevailed at every period, from 
that at which the evil was a maximum ; while 
every successive improvement or drainage has 
produced that conviction to a more enlightened 
posterity, which argument then, as now, would 
have failed to effect. If, in the cases to Avhich I 
allude, the evil should have even become a mini- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 125 

mum, which is not the fact, it would still be an 
evil, while, in reality, it is not a small one ; and 
while the whole is but a concatenated series, an 
alFair of majus and minus, there is as little reason 
why we should stop short of all that improve- 
ment which is practicable, as there was for inter- 
rupting the chain at any one point, and deciding 
that, there, in that proportion or that peculiar 
condition, water, or wet ground, had ceased to be 
pernicious. 

With a view to this fact, this series of gradually 
diminishing evil, of successive improvements in 
the condition of land, in our own country, and 
also elsewhere, attended by a diminution of dis- 
eases equally progressive and proportional, and 
therefore proving a gradual diminution in the 
generation of Malaria, it would be neither un- 
amusing nor uninstructive to trace the correspond- 
ing progress of health and drainage ; while it 
would, however, occupy more space than I dare 
bestow on it, and since the truth of the facts is 
too obvious to be disputed. A very few noted 
ones may, however, be mentioned in illustration ; 
while the success of that which has been done, 
though this can never again be obtained to the 
same extent, holds out encouragement to such 
further attempts as are yet wanting : the neglect 



126 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



of which is not justified by the conviction that 
httle remains comparatively to be effected, since 
in the present state of society, a small quantity of 
endemic disease is, for many obvious reasons, as 
great an evil as a much larger one was when hu- 
man life was of less comparative value, as imply- 
ing both less happiness and less utility, and held 
also under less secure a tenure ; while it is not 
questioned that the protection of the public 
health, is not less the duty of an economist and 
a politician, than it is a duty of mere humanity. 

It would require a long chapter to point out 
what has been done in this respect, even over a 
small part of Europe : and even a mere sketch 
respecting Holland would be one of no small 
length. In France, similarly, it has been an ob- 
ject of unremitting attention to the government, 
as it has occupied the exertions and the funds of 
many private individuals ; the public decrees to 
this purpose co^nmencing with Henry the fourth, 
and being repeated mider successive monarchs, 
down to Louis XVI. in 1791, and subsequently, 
imder Napoleon, in 1807, 1811, and 1817. The 
great embankment of Rochelle is one of the most 
conspicuous of these works ; and as a few other 
examples out of many, I may name the drainage 
of the marsh of the Chartreuse at Bordeaux, al- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



127 



ready noticed, the reformation of Montbrison in 
the Lyonnais, once the very type of this pest, by 
fining its ditches and erecting " boulevards," and 
the drainage of Chatillon in Burgundy ; an opera- 
tion from which the population has doubled 
within thirty years. 

Nor has Paris gained less than London in this 
respect, and by operations still jnore directly car- 
ried on with this very view ; since it must really 
be admitted, that it is to indirect means that we 
are indebted, not only in the capital, but almost 
every where else, for all that we have gained on 
this point : there having always prevailed among 
ourselves, that neglect, ignorance, incredulity, or 
contempt as to Malaria, which is even now so 
remarkable, and which, at this very day, refuses 
to believe that it is a cause of disease demanding 
and admitting correction. The history of 
Italy on this subject has occupied volumes, 
and I must refer to Prony and others for what 
it is impossible to quote : while it is not perhaps 
the least instructive part of this history, that in 
consequence of the suspension of the work which 
had been commenced under Napoleon in the 
Pontine marshes, the Malaria is as virulent there 
as ever, though some land was rescued to agri- 
culture. 



128 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



On this point, the improvements of England in 
this respect have been immense, almost even 
within our own memories ; undertaken, it is true, 
chiefly with agricultural objects, yet marked by 
a concomitant disappearance of disease, which 
Avould seem almost incredible were it not well 
authenticated. We can scarcely indeed look into 
English chronicle history without meeting the 
amplest evidence of this ; and from such and si- 
milar records, Short, Heberden, and others, have 
collected many striking facts, of which I may 
here name a few. On Burnet's authority it rests, 
that in the reign of Mary, the intermittent raged 
like a plague ; while we have medical testimonies 
to the same purpose, in the writings of Morton 
and Sydenham ; of whom, the former says that 
these diseases were peculiarly destructive between 
1658 and 1664. Between 1667 and 1692, two 
thousand persons appear to have died in London 
of dysentery, from the evidence of the bills of 
mortality ; and it is a chance if, in the same ex- 
tent of population, there is one who thus dies at 
present. Even far later, that is, between 1720 
and 1729, the whole nation, according to Dr. 
Short, was grievously afllicted with fevers of 
this nature ; when, at present, so rapid has the 
change been, we hear no longer of national epi- 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 



129 



demies ; though somewhat, as physicians know, 
must also be allowed to other improvements in 
the modes of life. At present also, an instance 
of death from mere intermittent is exceedingly 
rare ; whereas, according to Short, among forty 
deaths from fever, between 1629 and 1636, one 
was the effect of ague ; while in 1750, that pro- 
portion was not one in a thousand. That, as far 
as London is concerned, this has been chiefly the 
effect of the sewer drainage, is demonstrated; 
though much must also be allowed to similar 
operations in the flat lands to the eastward of it, 
or generally along the banks of the river. When 
Sydenham relates that the ague was frequently 
fatal in London in his own day, he did not probably 
foresee that such an event, at the present day, 
would be esteemed little better than marvellous ; 
nor let us persist in shutting our eyes to what 
yet remains to be done ; or, whether from indo- 
lence or that pride which refuses to learn or ad- 
mit what it has not before known, refuse to exert 
ourselves in exterminating the last remains of 
these causes of disease, as far at least as they are 
within our power. 

It has been suggested that a parliamentary in- 
quiry into this subject might advantageously be 
adopted ; since it would ])e little more than a 

K 



130 



SOILS AND SITUATIONS 



sanitary measure, justified by other practices re- 
specting the drainage of lands in general, and by 
the laws respecting imported contagion. It is 
probable that it would be attended with advan- 
tage ; while the inquiry needs not proceed to le- 
gislation. Such an inquiry is one of the most 
conspicuous and impressive modes of calling the 
public attention to measures or conduct in which 
their own welfare is concerned, and where, never- 
theless, it may not be expedient or easy for legis- 
lation to interfere. 

As far also as the greater cases are concerned, 
or the extermination of disease by the drainage 
and improvement of extensive tracts of noxious 
land, (since with respect to the smaller pernicious 
spots, no legislation, even in a despotic country, 
could easily act,) I may borrow a remark from 
Italian, but chiefly from French, writers ; though 
little applying to ourselves, among whom, while 
so much has already been effected, it is not the 
usage of government to perform any thing which 
can be executed by the combined or private ef- 
forts of individuals ; being content, and judici- 
ously, as the event has proved, with limiting its 
exertions to the legal protection of all parties. 
The remark in question alludes to ' the policy 
which wastes its means in foreign colonization, 



LESS SUSPECTED OF MALARIA. 131 

forgetting to extend by exertions and expence 
that would not be greater, and often much less, 
the territory and the population which it possesses 
at home ; suffering its own marshes to lie waste 
that it may occupy foreign ones, and, what, above 
all, it seems ever to have forgotten, forgetting 
that a population which is not healthy is an evi! 
and not an advantage, to the state as to the peo- 
ple themselves ; and that if the wealth of the 
people is an object to government, not less is it 
responsible for their health, since, without this, 
even industry must be cramped, and misery be- 
come the lot of those who demand and deserve 
from the state that happiness which they know 
not how to attain, or cannot, by themselves^ 
command. 



K 2 



132 



CHAPTER V. 

On certain obscure and disputed cases relating to 
the production of Malaria, 

In this chapter I propose to notice some doubt- 
ful or disputed facts^ and some difficulties which 
attend this subject, that I might not disturb the 
evidences as to what has been fully proved or in- 
variably admitted. It is therefore a collection of 
unconnected matters; while, among them, the" 
reader will, I think, perceive that there are facts 
which ought not to have been disputed, as he 
will also conjecture that what may appear ob- 
scure, has probably been rendered so by igno- 
rance, or else by inattention to the necessary par- 
ticulars on the part of the reporters. 

The condition of Egypt, whether in its state 
of quiescence or inundation, the natural state of 
its Deltas, and that which takes place on its in- 
undation and drainage, are too well known to 
require description. Examining this case a priori, 
we ought apparently to decide that its moist del- 
ta should produce as destructive a season of re- 
mittent as the worst parts of southern Africa, 
that during the north winds it should even gene- 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED^ &C. 



133 



rate abundant intermittent. We ought to decide 
that as its inundation is a swamp of the worst 
kind^ to the eye, and its drainage a marsh, the 
result should be a wide devastation from all the 
usual diseases of tropical climates. There are 
fevers and dysenteries it is true, and they appear, 
as might be expected, on the retiring of the wa- 
ter ; but they seem to bear no proportion to what 
might be expected, if indeed we may venture thus 
to judge from the general reports of travellers 
who have not been physicians. It is probable 
that the universal agriculture may assist in solving 
this difficulty ; for, as before remarked, this is 
everywhere a remedy against Malaria, as it ought 
to be on principle, by occupying, in a manner 
which is much less pernicious or hazardous, land 
which would otherwise produce an injurious ve- 
getation. On the plague, I ought not perhaps to 
indulge in any remarks ; but no one can yet be- 
lieve that this is the produce of a vegetable mi- 
asma, were it even satisfactorily demonstrated 
to be the peculiar produce of Egypt, when no 
disease produced by such miasma is known to be 
contagious, and when this, in spite of recent 
party and paradox, is one of the most actively 
contagious disorders existing. 

Inasmuch as two difficulties of a similar nature 



134 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



are always preferable to one^ in philosophy, as 
more likely to be under the guidance of some 
general and discoverable law, it will not be an 
addition at least to that of Egypt, to say, that, 
by the reports of travellers on certain parts of 
the East, the drainage of lands that have under- 
gone their annual inundation, is not invariably 
followed by the diseases that might be expected. 
There are few travellers w^hose observations are 
more apparently accurate, simply expressed, and 
unbiassed by all previous views, than Captain 
Hamilton, a century ago ; and of this nature is 
his report respecting the periodically inundated 
lands of India east of Bengal. But if this seemed 
at one time confirmed by the account of Captain 
Symes respecting the rise and fall of the Irawaddy 
and of the lake of Amarapoora, we have now 
reason to know that this country claims no ex- 
emption from fevers ; and further knowledge will 
probably prove that the same is true throughout 
Cambodia, Cochinchina, Siam, and all the coun- 
tries of a similar character in Eastern Asia. If a 
recent traveller has expressed his surprise at the 
occurrence of fevers in the Maremma of Tuscany 
where the land is not only free from lakes and 
rivers, but absolutely dry, and if, building on this, 
he desires to represent the origin of Malaria as 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



155 



involved in mystery^ it will soon be obvious, if 
it is not so already, that this imaginary mystery 
is the produce of inattention or ignorance. 

And as the same answer will serve for all such 
cases, I need not dwell on other parallel reports 
respecting other mysteries, similar or analogous, 
which are to be found, not only in books, but in 
the popular opinions, in our own country as else- 
where ; errors into which physicians of high re- 
putation, and of even the experience of Lind, 
have fallen. Such errors have sometimes arisen 
from neglecting some or other of the obscurer 
sources described in the last chapter, and, at 
others, from ignorance respecting the mode in 
which Malaria is propagated by the winds, and 
the distances to which it is conveyed : a subject 
which will be fully discussed in the seventh 
chapter. 

In the mean time I may remark, in explanation 
of such mystery, that, in a case which will imme- 
diately come under review, Rome receives its 
Malaria by a propagation of a peculiar nature ; 
as the high lands of many places receive from the 
low grounds at hand, what does not, compara- 
tively, affect the inhabitants where it is produced. 
And thus also, when it is a subject of common 
marvel why ague should occur in London, it is 
forgotten tliat this city is entangled in s(jmc nica- 



136 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



sure among low meadow lands, and exposed, in 
particular, as the last few years have proved, to the 
pernicious influence of those to the eastw^ard. 
And if any one will be at the trouble of noticing, 
in the neighbourhood of this nevertheless healthy 
city, such tracts of land, together with the petty 
sp6ts which, on the grounds here stated, and con- 
firmed by the French writers, can produce this 
poison, he will have little difficulty in accounting 
for those fevers, in particular, which, in the last 
summers, have been so prevalent, at least in its 
outskirts, at diiferent parts. 

It is thus that I find the highest parts of Brit- 
tany to be subject to inveterate ague, even an 
the summits of granite hills reported to be dry- 
land, as, for example, at Carhaix. Thus also was 
it reported that certain hilly situations in Wales 
were productive of agues, and, as was thought, 
w^ithout a cause : but the slender observation 
which detected that cause in this latter case, 
would probably have discovered it in the former, 
and in hundreds more, equally objects of sur- 
prise or mystery. Let the ground be carefully 
examined, both on the spot, and in the neigh- 
bourhood, and let the possible propagation by 
means of the winds be also traced, by the rules 
deducible from what I shall hereafter say on that 
subject, and it is probable that the far greater 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



137 



number of these imaginary difficulties would no 
longer want their solutions. 

ThuSj also, had I not a repugnance to specify 
places and lands, where the owners might think 
themselves aggrieved by a public notice of defects 
which may occasionally detract from the value, 
whenever this subject shall become an object of 
general attention, I might point out in Wilt- 
shire, and not only there, but ^in counties and 
places as little suspected, spots at a considerable 
elevation, entirely free from marshes, or even the 
suspicion of an unhealthy soil, and which are, 
nevertheless, annually, and within the last hot 
summers, in particular, subject to severe fevers, 
and this amid a rural and dispersed population. 
The resident apothecaries call them, as usual, 
typhus fevers, and, naturally enough, are sur- 
prised at their occurrence in such circumstances. 
The reader can now, I trust, give the just name 
to the fever ; and, as to the cause, it will be suf- 
ficient if he is now informed, that from the form 
of the land and the nature of the subsoil, the 
pasture lands in question are, although elevated, 
or rather truly hilly, so soft or wet as to be con- 
stantly poached by the feet of the cattle. Here, 
there is an unobserved, or an apparently mysteri- 
ous cause, and, I doubt not, a very common one ; 
as little suspected as observed; while the proof, 



138 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



as I have given it, is perfect, except to those who 
are still in that state of ignorance or obstinacy 
which cannot understand or will not believe in 
marsh fever ; persons to whom a few weeks of 
French or Italian experience would be of no 
small utility. 

But there is one mystery for which I can con- 
jecture no solution, while it rests on great autho- 
rities, and while every imaginable circumstance 
is present that ought to render the land in ques- 
tion one of the most pestiferous spots under the 
sun. It is a collection of jungles and woods and 
marshes and rivers and sea swamps, and it is a 
flat land under a tropical sun, and it is the land 
of monsoons ; and yet it is a land where fevers 
are unknown. And this land is our new settle- 
ment of Singapore. I dare not attempt to con- 
trovert such testimony, and must try to believe 
what I cannot understand : but others may, for 
aught I know, be inclined to suspect that some 
favouritism, not perhaps inexplicable, has dictated 
this report. 

I may now dismiss a branch of this chapter, 
which I would gladly have omitted altogether, 
had it not appeared absolutely necessary to notice 
what I believe to have much oftener arisen from 
inattention, and from ignorance respecting the 
natural history of Malaria, than from any radical 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



139 



difficulties inherent in the subject. I may pro- 
ceed to the consideration of the causes which 
have been doubted, but on which, it is probable, 
no doubts ought longer to exist. 

Though it has generally been a popular opin- 
ion, that putrifying vegetable matters, under 
whatever circumstances, generated fevers, and 
therefore Malaria, while, as I formerly observed, 
the very smell of such putrefaction was, and is 
yet, esteemed by the vulgar to be the cause, or at 
least to h^ an essential circumstance, many phy- 
sicians had considered the presence of a living 
vegetation necessary ; while some were even in- 
clined to deny that the ordinary putrefaction of 
dead vegetable matter attended by stench was 
capable of producing this poison. But the his- 
tory of the remittents of New York has decided 
this doubt ; that is, in as far as it is decided that 
none of these fevers were the contagious, Bulam 
disease ; since it is impossible to refuse assent to 
such observations as those of Rush and the other 
able physicians who were, so long and so often, 
watchful spectators of the rise and progress of 
this disease. Here, it was ascertained that the 
putrefaction of coffee, pepper, potatoes, &c. were 
causes of the fever, or that they actually gene- 
rated the Malaria in question ; while the facts, 
as stated, seem to confirm a suggestion which I 



140 



OBICURE AND DISPUTED 



formerly made^ namely, that it was not a matter 
of indifference in this case, what was the nature 
of the plants growing in marshes, or in soils ca- 
pable of producing this substance. 

The fact, in a general view, is an important 
one, if it is thus admitted to be proved ; as it be- 
trays the existence of numerous, local, and gene- 
rally accidental, sources of Malaria; not only 
explaining the occurrence of many single cases, 
but even accounting for occasional epidemic or 
endemic fevers ; and adding also to this know- 
ledge, a catalogue of precautions, so essential in 
the prevention of those diseases. It would be 
tedious, and indeed superfluous, to enumerate all 
the cases in common life where vegetable putre- 
faction may generate Malaria and fever ; but a 
few examples of what is most common and most 
likely to be injurious, or neglected, will be of 
use : while from those selected examples, per- 
haps, a sufficient knowledge of the subject for all 
useful purposes may be derived. 

Of these, one of the most common in many 
parts of Europe, and far from rare in our own 
country, is the process of soaking flax and hemp ; 
the offensive nature of which is well known. The 
proofs of the pernicious nature of these opera- 
tions are so numerous and decisive as to leave no 
ground for doubt, in spite of the theoretically 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



141 



puerile objection of Zaechiroli which I had occa- 
sion to quote formerly. Of pointed facts beyond 
number, related both in France and Italy, we 
find in Lancisi, that numerous severe epidemics 
in the latter country have been traced to these 
operations, and, among the rest, a noted one at 
Ferentino, and another at Orvieto which lasted 
many years. In the former country, out of simi- 
larly numerous cases, severe intermittents broke 
out in the plain of Forez in 1823, after October, 
(a very rare occurrence,) and were traced to this 
cause ; and we have the assurance of M. Bourges, 
that it is invariably pernicious, while he describes 
one very marked case where fevers occurred in a 
dry, sandy, and otherwise healthy and elevated 
situation, being regularly renewed with the steep- 
ing and drying of the hemp, and disappearing 
when that season was over. 

In Germany also, where this manufacture is 
extensively carried on, it seems to have been most 
satisfactorily proved that fevers, and of a very 
bad kind, are the result ; a fact which, with very 
many others, tends to establish the opinion else- 
where noticed, that the severity or nature of the 
resulting fever, in whatever way it may be in- 
fluenced by climate and other causes, is proba- 
bly also dependent either on the nature of the 



142 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



particular Malaria, or on the quantity in which 
it is applied. That, even in our own country, 
some regulation of police is called for respecting 
this subject, has often been said, and with reason ; 
since it is scarcely amenable to the common law 
of nuisance, unless under that engaging laxity 
which characterizes English Common Law ; and 
if, as is decidedly said, the process in question 
can be much better effected in running waters, 
and also without poisoning the stream, although 
not so rapidly, there are at least many places 
where this method might be substituted with a 
double advantage. 

To the ascertained poisonous action of the 
refuse of the Indigo manufactory, many more 
might easily be added, of a similar or analogous 
nature ; but the general principle being admit- 
ted, there will be no difficulty in applying it : 
while if an accuracy of observation which has 
never yet been exerted on this subject, any more 
than on that of small spots of wet ground, shall 
become common, instead of our remaining satis- 
fied with imaginary causes of fever, it is probable 
that many very unsuspected cases of vegetable 
putrefaction, such for example as even that of a 
garden dunghill, will be found to give rise to 
those disorders, of which the origin is at present 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



143 



so generally mysterious ; together with the con- 
sequent advantage of prevention, in many in- 
stances. 

It does not seem to have heen thought that 
Malaria is generated in water casks, or hy that 
action of water on mere wood, which occurs in 
sea voyages, eliciting a well-known smell, and 
producing hydrocarburetted gas ; a process so 
long misunderstood, even by chemistry, [to its 
disgrace, and, even yet, not comprehended by 
those who are most interested in it ; who attri- 
bute to the water what they should seek in the 
cask, and whose notions as to the superiority of 
Thames water, are on a par with their philosophy 
about Bristol water, and about all else which be- 
longs to this most simple subject. This is a 
question which must remain for further inquiry ; 
while it must in the mean time be considered a 
suspicious circumstance, and if so, applicable also 
on shore in similar cases, or where rain water is 
kept in spoiled casks. The suspicion arises 
chiefly from what I shall immediately point 
out as to bilge water, of which, in ordinary 
cases, the cause is the same ; while, in a che- 
mical view, we cafftiot see why there should be 
a difference, or why decomposing wood should 
not generate Malaria as well as other decompo- 
sing vegetable substances ; inasmuch as there is 



144 OBSCURE AND DISPUTED / 

no Steady and essential difFei'ence between the 
vegetable elements in the case of wood and of the 
other portions of a plant, or of herbaceous plants 
in general ; nor any apparent reason for doubting 
that the fragments of wood are, in the tropical 
climates, as active in this mischief as the leaves 
or other parts. 

Whether, if even thus produced, it is capable 
of acting so as to generate disease, is another 
question, and perhaps more complicated than at 
first appears. Yet, if a brief exposure to the 
Malaria of marshes can excite a fever, as I shall 
hereafter show that it does, or if a small quantity 
of the poison, or a single inspiration, is sufficient 
for this purpose, it is perfectly conceivable that 
the air in question may similarly affect a person 
immediately exposed to it by close communication 
with such a cask, whether at sea or on shore. 

This is easy to understand ; but there is a 
difficult question still remaining: and that is, 
whether the drinking of such water can produce 
the same effect^ or whether the Malaria, if it con- 
tains Malaria, can act through the stomach as 
well as through the lungs. It is the same ques- 
tion which relates to the use of bad water in tro- 
pical climates, as it also involves the greater one, 
viz. by what ways Malaria does or can enter the 



CASES OF MALARIA, 



145 



body ; and as I have been compelled to examine 
these elsewhere, it is unnecessary to speak fur- 
ther respecting this matter, at present. 

But if the putrefaction of wood in water-casks 
at sea, though not yet suspected of producing 
fever, can scarcely be deemed innocent, the same 
suspicion attaches more strongly to the case of 
bilge water ; very particularly when produced 
from the leakage of sugar, where it is known to 
be highly offensive. It has not, as far as I know, 
been ever demonstrated, nor indeed much sus- 
pected, that the fevers of ships were produced 
from this cause ; while, whenever fever does oc- 
cur in such a situation, it is generally, or perhaps 
almost always, viewed as a typhus and a conta- 
gious disease. The error itself is easy ; and while 
it is one also strongly aided by prejudice and ha- 
bit, it is plain that the remittent might, as thus 
occurring, be so mistaken without any great stig- 
ma on the discernment of the practitioner ; as it 
would be difficult to ascertain that numerous cases 
of fever, breaking out in this manner among a 
crowded crew, were not propagated from one 
person to another. Yet the distinction is of great 
importance, for many obvious reasons ; nor need 
I point out further to medical men, how neces- 
sary it is to ascertain what the truth actually is 
on this point. To maintain, as there seems at 

L 



146 OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 

present a tendency to do, in a sect which appears 
to be now seeking notoriety by paradox, that 
there is no such thing as contagious fever, is 
assuredly to attempt to establish a most danger- 
ous doctrine ; but if we unite all the evil conse- 
quences, it will be found that not less inconveni- 
ence follows from ranking under this head, as is 
daily done, thousands of cases of remittent. 

In truth, it seems to me that the evils are 
greater ; for it is thus, among other things, that 
the means of prevention are overlooked ; while, 
if those who thus argue against the non-conta- 
gious nature of fevers, have unintentionally con- 
firmed the opinion which pervades this work, 
they have not seen the whole truth, nor seen it 
in that manner which would alone render their 
opinions useful ; not inquiring into the real cause 
and nature of such fevers, but most generally at- 
tributing them to fanciful ones, and acting rather 
under the spirit of opposition than in that of 
philosophy. 

If, however, I cannot exactly prove that bilge 
water is capable of generating Malaria and fever, 
I am not at least very far from that proof, since 
the mortality in sugar ships is always notedly 
greater than with any other cargo, and has often 
been most destructive ; while I need scarcely re- 
peat that it is notoriously the very worst of car- 



CASES OF MAI.ARIA. 147 

goes in this respect. And the opinion is further 
supported by a great mass of facts occurring in 
merchant ships and in the navy ; while their num- 
bers may perhaps compensate for their want of 
speciaHty. The general experience is^ that a foul 
ship, and foul, as ships are^ from bilge water 
chiefly, is invariably a sickly ship, and that ves- 
sels of this character, falling under the command 
of an attentive captain whose rule it has been to 
wash the hold by means of the plug, daily, till 
the water came up as transparent as the sea out- 
side, have recovered their health, as they have 
also remained free from disease. Such was the 
rule, for example, of Sir Henry Baynton, who 
cannot object to see his name thus quoted for 
good ; and such was the rule of Captain Smyth, 
who during his long and well known services in 
the Mediterranean survey, never experienced 
fever, on any occasion, on board of any one of 
the various ships which he commanded. I may 
bestow the same praise on Parry, as also on his 
great predecessor, Cook ; while among hundreds 
of examples of the reverse, far too easy to find, 
I shall notice but one, since they are not so agree- 
able to point out. This occurred on board of the 
Powerful, a seventy-four ; which was entirely 
disabled by sickness, by fevers, during her pas- 
sage from the East Indies, while, when examined, 

L 2 



148 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



her ballast was found to be, from neglect, a mass 
of putrid mud, the unquestionable cause of all 
this evil. 

In reality, I entertain no doubt, that while we 
must suppose contagious fever to occur occasion- 
ally in ships, from various obvious causes, the 
great and frequent mortality in them has ever 
proceeded from this very cause, Malaria, the Ma- 
laria produced by neglect of cleanliness ; and that 
the fevers so generally reputed typhus, have been 
the remittent thus generated. Hence also the 
frequent failure of fumigation ; as this can pos- 
sess no power against a daily productive and ever 
renewed source of disease : though it might pro- 
duce the expected effect for a day or more. Against 
that, there can be no remedy but to extirpate the 
cause by absolute cleanliness in the hold, or by 
the constant use of the plug : while I entertain 
no doubt, that if this rule were made imperative 
on all commanders of vessels, not only in the 
Navy, and under a fixed regulation of the Admi- 
ralty, but in the merchant service, by ship owners, 
and very especially by the West India trade, the 
fevers which are now so frequent would dis- 
appear. 

There can be no other causes of remittent 
fevers at sea ; the case of tropical harbours being 
of course excluded : and if, in addition to this 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



149 



care, it were also a rule to fumigate every vessel 
with sulphurous acid before leaving port, for the 
purpose of destroying any casual contagion which 
might have found its way on board, taking also 
such obvious precautions with respect to the crew 
as do not require to be described, it is almost im- 
possible that what, almost alone, deserves, as it 
receives, the name of sickness, at sea, should ex- 
ist ; while an immense mortality, injurious, and 
deeply inconvenient, in far more modes than the 
mere waste of life, would be prevented, hereafter, 
and for ever. They who know the history of 
commerce, or of navigation under whatever 
forms, know well what has been thus sulFered, 
and is, daily, suffered ; and they know too, that 
if fevers are but excluded, the diseases of the sea 
are, in the present day, nothing. 

I cannot cease to wish that these opinions were 
more widely promulgated; convinced that in 
stating them, I am offering the means of widely 
saving human life ; and not only so, but of pre- 
venting those losses of property, of commercial 
wealth in various modes, and those disappoint- 
ments, not merely in trade, but in naval warfare, 
which are but too well known to those who know 
what has been the history of our naval wars. 
The spirits of tens of thousands might join with 
" Hosier s Ghost," in remonstrance to those fi^om 



150 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



whose neglect or ignorance it has arisen^ that 
their bodies were committed to the deep^ the un- 
honoiired victims of pestilence^ not the bold de- 
fenders of their country's glory. 

I know not where, better than here^ I can also 
introduce another cause of Malaria little noticed ; 
one at least which is universally believed and as- 
serted to be a cause^ by the French physicians 
who have bestowed most attention on this sub- 
ject. This source of fevers is found in the dung- 
hills and pools so common at the doors of farm- 
houseSj and more especially of cottages and petty 
establishments, in almost every country. That, 
in common with sewers, ditches, and other similar 
repositories of putrefying vegetable matters, they 
do produce autumnal fevers in France, is not 
only believed, but, as far as we can trust those 
reporters, fully proved ; nor, after all that has 
here been said on this subject, is there any reason 
for doubting the fact. If it be equally true in 
our own country, as may equally be suspected, 
especially in hot and peculiar seasons, it offers a 
new argument against this discreditable fashion ; 
while it may also explain many of the fevers oc- 
curring in the country every year, where no ob- 
vious source of Malaria exists, and which, as 
usual, are reputed as typhus. 

In how far mere mud, the apparent produce of 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



151 



the sea^ or left by the recess of the tide^ in ports 
and estuaries^ and at the mouths or on the banks 
of tide rivers, can or does produce Malaria, is 
one of the questions on this subject which has 
been argued on different sides. That sucli mud, 
appertaining to fresh waters, and laid bare by the 
summer heats, in lakes, pools, and canals, does 
produce fevers, and of a very serious charactei , 
has been formerly shown. In such cases, it might 
be easily conjectured, and is in fact known, that 
the mud contains, not merely vegetable matters 
in a state of decomposition, but animal matter 
also ; though in how far animal matter can pro- 
duce or aid in the production of Malaria, is a 
point which has never been decided, however 
often it has been suspected, and even asserted. 
Now with respect to marine mud, it cannot be 
supposed that clay and water alone could give 
rise to this poison, so that it is easy to understand 
where the exceptions would be found ; while if 
it contains putrefying sea plants, there is no rea- 
son why it should not be as pernicious as the 
mud of lakes, inasmuch as the presence of salt 
is no remedy, here, more than in the case of salt 
marshes. Or, as it is the effect of tides, in es- 
tuaries and similar circumstances, to reject, and 
often therefore to expose the mud brought down 
by rivers, it is plain that, even without the pre- 



152 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



sence of marine plants or their remains^ such 
mud must often be in the same circumstances as 
that of lakes in summer. In our own climate 
indeed^ where the heat of the sun is less likely 
to operate an injurious effect of this nature within 
the few hours of low water, such a result is less 
likely ; while deceptions may easily arise in this 
case, from the fact that, in those situations, there 
must often be marshy land in the neighbourhood, 
or, as in Southampton river, exposed banks of 
living Zostera, acting probably the part of a 
marsh. 

But though I have formerly remarked, that 
odour, or the smell of putrefying vegetables, is 
not an exclusive test of the presence of Malaria, 
and is assuredly not necessary to its existence^, 
any more than that the fetid gas is itself the poi- 
son in question, a remark which is further com- 
pletely proved by the fact that marsh lands emit 
as bad an odour in winter as in summer, and yet 
without producing disease, we can never consider 
as safe, those sea ports, generally dry harbours^ 
which emit the smell of putrid sea weed at low 
water; while, most of all, are those suspicious 
which receive the sewers of the to\vns themselves. 
It may even be suspected that to manure land 
with that substance is not a safe operation ; while 
as to the former case, there is evidence in abun- 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



153 



dance^ even from Europe, even indeed from Eng- 
land, to prove that fevers, and in summer as 
usual, are the actual produce of sea ports or har- 
bours under these circumstances. 

In France, and in Holland very especially, this 
has been proved in innumerable instances ; and, 
in fact, many of the most severe epidemics of 
this latter country have been traced to this very 
cause, the exposure of sea weed, whether on the 
shores or in the interior lands. In the Mediter- 
ranean, the nature of the tides is less likely to 
produce any very conspicuous effects of this na- 
ture, yet they are far from being unknown ; and 
as to our own country, though they may be less 
common or marked than in France, I have no 
doubt that the fevers so common in sea ports are 
in reality owing to this very cause ; while, by the 
usual error, they are always reputed as typhus, 
or as contagious disorders produced by poverty, 
want of ventilation, and the other circumstances 
attached to such places, and so often unjustly 
accused of what is not their consequence. In 
how far any modes of prevention might any 
where be derived from this view, it would be im- 
possible to inquire, except for each particular 
case ; but it is the fundamental step of greatest 
importance to assign the real cause, and the real 
nature of the fevers so universally mistaken. 



154 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



I know that the case of Venice has been ad- 
duced against this opinion ; but whatever was its 
freedom from disease in the classical times^ as^ in 
in consequence of a diiFerent state of things often 
here noticed^ was then true of many other parts 
of Italy, it is not true that Venice is now free 
from summer fevers, while it is a fact that its 
unheal thiness has been gradually increasing for 
a long time past. Even were it not so, the slen- 
der vacillations of the Adriatic tides would pre- 
vent any great exposure of mud in this case; 
and thus explain the exemption : while it is not 
less notorious, that from a peculiarity in the cur- 
rents in this singular place, the lagunes are freed 
from that mud which would otherwise accumulate, 
and produce what has happened in so many other 
places, even on this shore. 

That mere mud, maritime as well as terrestrial, 
containing vegetable matter, yet free from any 
herbaceous or closely investing vegetation, does 
produce Malaria of the most destructive nature, 
in the tropical regions, or under appropriate cir- 
cumstances of climate or heat, is amply proved, 
if further proof were necessary, by what occurs 
in the Mangrove rivers, whether of Africa or else- 
where. In such situations, it is well known, this 
tree forms dense and extensive thickets or fo- 
rests^ if forests they can be called, through which^ 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



155 



at high tides^ the trunks^ such as they are^ are 
found rising out of the water^ producing such 
an effect to the eye, as might happen with us 
from the inundation of a wood ; while, on the 
recess of the tide, it is seen that they are rooted 
in this bare mud, which they serve to retain and 
consolidate ; thus becoming important geological 
agents in the extension of the alluvial lands of 
the rivers. 

Now, on this subject, I have carefully cross- 
examined intelligent naval officers, and it has 
been their decided opinion that the cause of the 
fever, or the Malaria, so frequently and exten- 
sively fatal to the crews of boats when sent up 
these rivers, was extricated during low water, and 
from the mud, while it was attended by a pecu- 
liar smell, described rather as an earthy than a 
putrid one. And that opinion is confirmed by 
the fact, that in cases where such a river-course 
extended for miles, no other source of Malaria 
could be present ; while mere approximation to 
the thickets, from the sea, was sufficient to pro- 
duce the fever, and almost instantaneously, 
provided the mud was bare : the navigation of 
such a stream being safe at high water. 

In such cases, unquestionably, the cause must 
be sought in the decomposition of the vegetable 
matters which arc mixed with the mud: frag- 



156 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



ments and leaves from the trees themselves^ to- 
gether prohably with analogous matter brought 
down by the stream. Yet^ that in such extreme 
cases as this, the smell of vegetable putrefaction 
is not present, serves to prove also, that putre- 
faction, in the proper sense of the term, is not 
necessary to the production of Malaria, but that 
the stage, or mode, of vegetable decomposition 
required for the production of that poison, is dif- 
ferent from that which generates a fetid gas. As 
I remarked before, the two may co-exist, possi- 
bly in different places or parts, at one time, pos- 
sibly even in the very same place or substances ; 
but we must not consider the smell of putrefac- 
tion as necessary, or imagine ourselves secure 
because it is not present. Or, the gas which is 
Malaria may be mixed with the fetid gas, or else 
either may exist without the other : while the 
process of decomposition may, and even at the 
same period, or stage, for aught that we know to 
the contrary, produce either the one or the 
other, or both united. Here also there is an 
analogy to the matters of contagion. These, all 
of them, it is well known, can be present without 
being sensible to the smell : but they are often 
also united with some matter producing foetor, as 
such smells may exist, even in great intensity, 
without including the matters of contagion. 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



157 



Though^ in a former place, I was cdfnpelled 
to notice this question as it relates to sewers and 
drains, from their connection with the ordinary 
agricultural works of a similar nature, it is one 
which might equally have found its place here, 
thus intricately are all those subjects connected. 
These are cases, properly, of mud without actual 
vegetation, or of the decomposition of dead, and 
very frequently of disorganized vegetable matter ; 
and the whole serves to prove that a living vege- 
tation is not necessary to the production of this 
poison. If Fleet ditch was ever the source of 
disease that it was supposed, it is one out of nu- 
merous proofs on this subject ; while I need 
scarcely repeat here, that the pernicious character 
of such receptacles, both close and open, has been 
a prevailing opinion among physicians at all 
times and places, however often the nature of the 
fevers produced by them may have been mistaken: 
while a variety of facts connected with the police 
reforms and previously neglected condition of 
towns, if far too numerous and often too loose 
to be quoted as proofs, seem amply to justify, 
from experience, that the air extricated in such 
circumstances, if it be not all Malaria, or always 
containing that substance, is frequently a real 
cause of the fevers of this character which have 
so notoriously prevailed in ill-regulated towns. 



158 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



To pass now from the question of mere vege- 
table putrefaction, there is an assertion respecting 
the production of remittent^ of a very diiferent 
nature, in \vhi(-h there may, or rather must be, a 
fallacy involved. According to the testimony of 
African travellers, and of Park in particular, it is 
produced immediately on the fall of the rains, as 
if the mere contact of the rain itself was the 
cause. Such indeed appears to be his opinion. 
I cannot deny here what I have not seen ; but it 
must be recollected that this rain falls in a cli- 
mate and at a moment when the whole atmos- 
phere is, or has just commenced to be one mass 
of Malaria, and that in the circumstances noticed, 
it would always be at least an accessary or pre- 
disposing cause. In this case it may be no more, 
if it be even that. 

The facts, as more accurately stated by other 
travellers, and also in some measure by himself 
in other places, seem to be, that as the vegetable 
decomposition necessarily active in so hot a cli- 
mate, commences as soon as the ground becomes 
wetted, the generation of Malaria begins, perhaps 
even on the first day or hour ; and that, in this 
as in every other case, it is but the produce of a 
vegetating soil, rendered suddenly marshy or wet 
under a high temperature. That this is the view 
entertained by the natives themselves, is plain, 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



159 



from the care with which they retire to their 
houses and endeavour to exchide even the least 
access of the external air : judging, what is pro- 
bably true, that the whole atmosphere is one 
wide body of Malaria. As the rain increases, 
however, and the ground becomes thoroughly 
wetted, the diseases diminish, returning again as 
the retiring of the rains allow it to dry. Hence 
it is, that in Africa and elsewhere, the greatest 
influence of the Malaria takes place at the end 
of the rainy season ; and thus also it was on the 
retiring of the waters after the rains and the 
inundation, that the great mortality commenced 
among our troops at Rangoon in October. 

This fact is, in another sense, of some value, 
as tending to explain what I formerly remarked 
respecting the occasional increase of Malaria in 
certain parts of Europe from attempts at drainage. 
It serves to show what was then suggested, that 
a very wet state of the soil was not so injurious 
as some one intermediate between complete inun 
dation, or swampiness, and absolute dryness. 

And if it is easy to see, without a more minute 
explanation, how it bears on this, and on many 
collateral or similar cases readily affiliated to it 
with a little reflection, it is a fiict also which il- 
lustrates in that satisfactory manner which is 
always the result, as it is tlie proof, of a philoso- 



160 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



phical principle truly assumed in science, all 
these facts of an analogous nature which occur 
in our own country. In Africa, as in other tro- 
pical climates, if there is neither spring nor 
autumn, these two periods, as far as they relate 
to the production of Malaria, are represented by 
the falling of the rains and by the retirement of 
the waters ; while they may be separated but by 
a few weeks, instead of being placed, as with us, 
at an interval of half the year. The analogy is 
maintained throughout ; and the consequences 
are the same, varying chiefly in intensity or 
, degree. I need not detail the points of resem- 
blance more minutely ; while the differences, and 
their causes also, are obvious. 

There is yet another common opinion on this 
subject, which seems to imply a decided fallacy 
of observation united to a prejudice, and to which 
I alluded not long ago. To drink bad water in 
hot climates, as is a necessarily frequent occur- 
rence, is so commonly reputed a cause of fevers, 
that it may seem hazardous to question its truth. 
But whatever accessary ill effects this may pro- 
duce, it is always forgotten that this bad water 
occurs, only, or chiefly, when the land is of such 
a nature as to be in itself a source of Malaria ; 
as the cases recorded are never those of the 
brackish or half putrid waters of the sandy de- 



CASEiii OF MALARIA. 



161 



serts, but of those of low and marshy lands, or of 
situations where, with any water, fevers would be 
produced. Were the water alone, as drink, the 
cause of fever, it should occur equally in all 
places, not only in the deserts of Africa, but in 
numerous cases, in towns, where, nevertheless, 
this consequence has not been observed. That 
such waters may produce diarrhea, is not de- 
nied ; but even here, there is a wide difference 
between such a disease and the dysentery of Ma- 
laria. On this illustration however I must not 
lay any stress; having already placed it among 
the facts demanding further investigation. 

J am not aware that among what else I might 
have recorded on this subject of obscurities, 
there is any thing more so very far differing in 
principles from what has now been stated, or so 
very material, as to justify me in prolonging this 
part of the present chapter. If 1 have omitted 
any thing on which I might have explained my- 
self further, I do not imagine there can be aught 
which will not be easily understood now, from a 
due application of the leading facts which have 
been discussed. Yet I will not conclude with- 
out one further note. 

It is a popular prejudice in Italy, that volcanic 
soils are especially productive of Malaria, or ra- 

M 



OBSCURE AMD DISPUTED 



ther, that they are intrinsically capable of pro- 
ducing it. On what principles, it may be asked ? 
If this be mere assertion, a counter assertion is 
not more worthless ; and neither deserves atten- 
tion. If it is matter of evidence, it must either 
be admitted, or met by counter proofs. I possess 
no knowledge either way ; but it is the duty of 
the Italian theorist to see that he has not over- 
looked essential circumstances, and, here also, 
given as a causa pro non causa. When another 
philosopher of the same stamp asserts that the 
production of Malaria is here regulated by a mine 
of pyrites, and so forth, extending from some 
place to some other place, it is not difficult to 
know what to believe. The truth, as to the for- 
mer fancy, may probably be, that the soils of this 
class are the most fertile ; but as it is a subject 
not worth inquiring of further, I shall terminate 
this chapter with the examination of a somewhat 
intricate question relating to Rome, as it relates 
to the production and effects of Malaria. 

The relative states of ancient and modern 
Rome, and of the neighbouring country, with 
respect to the production of Malaria, as indicated 
by a difference, real or imaginary, in their salu- 
brities, would, if the superiority of former times 
in this respect were really proved, offer a diffi- 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



163 



cult problem on this subject. That such an 
opinion has been entertained by some writers on 
this question, will not however prove that the 
fact was so ; but as it is a very entangled inquiry, 
and as I do not conceive that we have yet at- 
tained that degree of knowledge as to the causes 
of Malaria which will enable us to pronounce 
decisively on either side, I shall detail the neces- 
sary facts as briefly as possible, as they can be 
collected from the classical writers. That Broc- 
chi has supposed ancient Rome to have been 
more healthy, yet not less subject to Malaria than 
the present city, explaining the supposed fact by 
a difference in the mode of clothing, is a solution 
which I must examine in another place. 

The ordinary conclusions of natural history 
will determine, in the first place, that the site of 
Rome, as well as the surrounding country, must, 
at its foundation, have been a tract of woods, 
lakes, and marshes ; and, that such a territory 
must have been productive of fevers, appears an 
inevitable consequence. In spite of this, the city 
flourished and increased, while the surrounding 
country was also filled with a population distri- 
buted in hamlets and villages. The plain of 
Latium for example, which is nov/ a desert, was, 
at that time and long after, rich and populous : 

M 2 



V 



164 



OSSCURE AND DISPUTED 



and thus also the lake of Castiglione^ now infa- 
mous for its pestilential air, was the seat of a 
powerful city which long resisted the arms of 
Tarquinius Superbus. The ancient Laticum was 
situated near a marsh which is now one of the 
most destructive spots in this district ; and the 
Romans erected baths beyond the Anio, in a 
place which is, at present, too hazardous even to 
be visited. The Lago di Giuturna was a favour- 
ite spot with the ancient Romans ; yet in later 
times it rendered Castel Gandolfo uninhabitable, 
and was therefore drained in 1611, by Paul V. 
In the time of the Volsci there were twenty-three 
towns and villages in the Pontine marshes, of 
which Ardea and Lavinium were two. But as it 
is unnecessary to accumulate more of these spe- 
cific facts, I shall only further remark, that history 
confirms what might have been inferred from 
general considerations, namely, that the country 
round Rome was in ancient times interspersed 
with what were called lakes, and which were, in 
fact, chiefly marshy pools ; as must necessarily 
be the character of accumulated water in a coun- 
try of such a form and distribution. And these 
tracts, which were then populous and flourishing, 
are now uninhabited deserts ; although the lakes 
and marshes have comparatively disappeared, 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



165 



under different attempts at drainage, attended by 
various success. 

With respect to the city itself at that early 
date, the facts are similar and the conclusions not 
less puzzling. About the earliest period of which 
we have any distinct knowledge, the town was 
limitted to the Quirinal, the Palatine, and the Ca- 
pitol, and at the very foot of these, lay the great 
and the little Velabrum ; besides which, we must 
recollect the Caprean marsh and that of Teren- 
tum, the whole forming, as can scarcely at least 
be doubted, a focus of Malaria and fevers. Yet, 
that while the surrounding country was populous, 
the city also increased rapidly in population, even 
at the earliest period, is evinced by various facts 
which history furnishes ; of which I need only 
notice, that the first census by Serivus Tullus, 
produced 80,000 citizens, capable, as is supposed, 
of bearing arms ; whence the general population 
can be conjectured. And if we examine how the 
fact stood as to the neighbouring towns, we shall 
find that Ardea, which now reckons six hundred 
inhabitants, was then able to raise an army suffi- 
cient to resist Rome and also to send a colony to 
Saguntum ; and that Ostia, now I believe inha- 
bited by a single innkeeper, became a flourishing 
city soon after its foundation by Ancus Martins. 



166 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



Siicli is a sufficient statement of this class of 
facts. Whether the production or the virulence 
of the Malaria has increased in modern times, 
or whether the ancient inhabitants had means of 
resisting its influence which the moderns have 
not, are the questions that remain to he solved, 
unless some other collateral cause of this extra- 
ordinary dilFerence can be assigned. It cannot 
be safely asserted that at any period of the his- 
tory of Rome, the city and the neighbourhood 
were free from this plague and its consequences ; 
while there is indeed much reason to infer that 
it was as poisonous, essentially, then, as it is 
now, though the apparent effects or the political 
consequences were less severe. This seems easily 
proved from history ; and still we continue 
harassed with difficulties as to the solution of 
what has, to some writers, seemed almost an 
enigma. 

It may^ be thought indeed, that as to some 
parts of this district, if not to all, the evil has 
really increased in modern times, not solely from 
the decay of agriculture arising from that inju- 
dicious political management as to corn laws, so 
often blamed, and from other analogous causes 
as often discussed, but from geological changes 
as to the form of the land itself: and of such 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



167 



facts and their consequences, to a certain extent, 
there seems ample proof. The joint action of 
the sea and the rivers will, in the case of the 
Pontine marshes, easily explain a change on this 
important point, fully adequate to an increase of 
the evil : and reasoning of an analogous nature 
may be applied, under modifications, to more 
inland districts. 

It is also not an unimportant remark in this 
case w^hich we derive from Theophrastus ; name- 
ly, that the plain of Latium was covered, and 
especially towards the sea, by forests of laurel 
(bay) and myrtle, of such size as to be used in 
ship building ; constituting, doubtless, screens to 
protect the country from the pernicious southern 
winds, and to check the propagation, if not the 
production, of Malaria. And while this was the 
fact, it is not less plain that the ancient Romans 
knew the value of this expediient ; and thus, it is 
probable, was averted much of the evil which 
modern changes as to this point have introduced. 
The Law of the Twelve Tables Lucos in agris 
habinto," seems to have been directed to this end; 
and hence also the sacred character of groves, 
and the heavy penalties denounced against those 
who destroyed or injured them. How truly this 
was the chief, and perhaps the only reason, is 



168 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



proved by what Pliny says of their property to 
absorb and destroy the mephitic vapours^ un- 
founded as his theory may be. If, further, we 
consider the great changes which are produced 
in the salubrity of a country by changes in the 
modes of cultivation, as well as by planting, or 
even by the reverse, changes which even affect 
the general climate independently of their local 
effects, it would not be very difficult to compre- 
hend now the ancient and modern conditions of 
the Roman territory may have been really different, 
while where difficulties arise on the examination 
of particular facts, it must be recollected that 
none of these can be judged of on general 
grounds, nor without an ample knowledge of 
every circumstance ; as the very same treatment 
or change which may be salutary in one country 
or tract, may be pernicious in another. As to 
the changes of climate to which I have just al- 
luded, the produce of various concurring causes, 
it will be another question how far that change 
in the temperature of Rome and its neighbour- 
hood which is proved by the accounts of the clas- 
sical writers, may have lent its aid towards in- 
creasing the produce and severity of the Malaria. 

But it would far exceed my necessary bounds 
to enter further on these details ; and I may 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



169 



merely remark that the first great territorial 
change appears from history to have occurred 
after the invasion of Attila, when the Tiber broke 
loose, and, from want of care, the Campagna be- 
came a marsh. The drainage was however re- 
newed under Theodoric, by CaeciHus Decius ; 
but on the expulsion of the Goths, this tract was 
again neglected, and fell back into the same state. 
If under a succession of Popes, commencing with 
Boniface VIII., and followed by Martin V., Cle- 
ment VII., Pius v., Clement XI., and afterwards 
by Sixtus V. and Leo X., various attempts were 
made on the Pontine marshes, little success was 
the consequence ; while, according to Prony's 
report, the efforts of Pius VI. terminated no less 
in a waste of money. But as I dare not pursue 
this local subject, nor attempt to strike the balance 
as to the territorial conditions of ancient and 
modern Rome, I may proceed, confining myself 
as strictly as possible to the question vvhich 
Brocchi has started ; the first object being to 
show that Malaria and its consequences were the 
scourge of ancient as well as of modern Rome. 

By the testimonies of Solinus and Dionysius 
of Halicarnassus, it is proved that the first set- 
tlers were obliged to abandon the Palatine mount, 
in consequence of the pernicious exhalations of 



170 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



the Velabrum ;""aiid we are also informed by Co- 
lumella, that the land near Tusculum, cultivated 
by Attilius Regulus in the first Punic war, was 
pestilential : the Malaria of that tract being pro- 
bably produced by the present Lago di Castig- 
lione. It is further probable that the larger pro- 
portion of the pestilences described by the Ro- 
man writers, were unusually severe visitations of 
the marsh fever ; though at this distance of time^ 
and under information which is not medical, we 
must not absolutely decide that some of these 
may not have been instances of contagious fever, 
perhaps even of plague. Such may probably 
have been the pestilences of 355 and 573, since 
there are facts in Livy's narrative which rather 
seem to justify this conclusion ; and such possi- 
bly were the cases in which the city alone suf- 
fered, while the surrounding country was exempt. 
But allowing even much for this, we find from 
Plutarch, that noted periods of sickness occurred 
in the time of Romulus and in that of Numa, 
while similar ones are recorded of the reigns of 
Servius Tullus and Tarquinius Superbus : and 
when Livy says that in the short period of 173 
years, or, from 287 U. C. to 460, there occurred 
at Rome or in the surrounding country, no less 
than nineteen distinct plagues, none of them at 



CASES OF MALARIA. 



171 



longer intervals than seventeen years, and some 
lasting two or three years together, it is not pos- 
sible to avoid concluding that the fever of Ma- 
laria must have prevailed then in as great severity 
as it does at present. 

But even putting aside mere inferences of this 
nature, we have the direct testimony of many 
writers of the time of the Republic, as to the in- 
salubrity of the climate and the occurrence of 
autumnal fevers. Cato mentions places where it 
w^as impossible to live on account of the badness 
of the air ; Livy speaks of tertians and quartans ; 
and Varro advises the proprietor of an unhealthy 
farm to sell it at any price, and in case that was 
impracticable, to abandon it, unless he was desi- 
rous of being confined as a madman. 

And that the country in question was un- 
healthy, and known to be so, from Malaria and 
from marshes, is further proved by the repeated 
attempts at drainage, even in very early days. 
The Consul Scaurus drained a tract of marshes 
on the Po^ and Marcus Curius Dentatus executed 
a similar operation on the lake near Rieti. 
When it is related by historians that the armies 
were often obliged to quit their encampments 
near marshes, on account of diseases, it is evident 



172 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



that the fact was as well understood as it was 
common. That the necessity continued^ and was 
never forgotten, is further apparent from a drain- 
age executed by Cornelius Cethegus near Rome, 
and from the intentions of Julius Caesar, frus- 
trated only by his death. In Egypt, still later, 
Augustus (then Octavius,) cleansed the canals of 
the Nile for similar reasons, and afterwards carried 
on some operations towards the same end, at 
home. Between the periods of this Emperor and 
Gratian, the Pontine marshes were maintained in 
a dry state for 300 years ; and we trace every 
where a great anxiety in keeping canals clean, 
while there is little doubt that analogous consi- 
derations entered into the reasons for constructing 
the celebrated but disputed Cloacae. To put this 
matter indeed out of doubt, Strabo says very posi- 
tively, that this healthiness was owing to the at- 
tention bestowed on drains, forests, roads, and so 
forth ; nor need we doubt the existence of this 
knowledge even in times much more ancient, 
when we find it recorded of Empedocles, that he 
reformed an unhealthy district by turning the 
courses of two rivers, when those who, in Greece, 
rescued marsh lands to cultivation were exempted 
from all taxes and public senices, and when the 



CASES OF MALARIA. 173 

very fable of the Lernoean hydra and the deeds 
of Hercules, is but the poetical record of a suc- 
cessful operation of this nature. 

It is true, undoubtedly, that even in the times 
of the Empire, the Campagna continued to be 
inhabited ; since, during the reigns of the Caesars, 
the thirty-one country tribes were dispersed in 
this district. Yet that the city, and the coun- 
try also were unhealthy, and subject to annual 
fevers, is a fact so very familiar, in consequence of 
the numerous and well-known writers of that pe- 
riod, that it is supei-fluous to do more than remind 
the reader of the names of Columella, Varro, 
Strabo, Martial, Horace, Seneca, Galen^ and of 
the regular migrations which all who could con- 
trive to leave the city made to their country seats ; 
to Baise, Benacus, Tusculum, Tibur, and so forth, 
as much for the purpose of avoiding the fevers, 
as from that love of the country for which the 
Romans had been distinguished from the earliest 
periods of their history. 

But to end. If any thing should be urged in 
favour of the superior salubrity of former or early 
Rome, from the comparative want of records of 
disease, it must be remembered that there were, 
for a long time, no writers, and for a further long 
period, that they were rare : and, moreover, that 



174 



OBSCURE AND DISPUTED 



professors of pliysic were long unknown to this 
rude people, since, according to Pliny, the first of 
these appeared from Greece in 535. Nor, from 
what we know of the political situation of the 
inferior classes, was it probably considered a mat- 
ter worthy of much notice, should a few thou- 
sands, whether citizens or slaves, die in every 
autumn: while the blank also was rendered 
speedily insensible in a population almost hourly 
recruited from every quarter of the known world. 
To vvhich I may further add, that from the 
crowded state of the people, in houses and streets, 
(a circumstance well illustrated by Gibbon,) it is 
probable that the ravages of the Malaria within 
the walls was materially checked, on the princi- 
ples which I have elsewhere explained in speak- 
ing of the propagation of this poison. 

With respect to the country without the walls, 
or the rural population generally, I have, but one 
supposition more to offer ; and if it is not capable 
of explaining the difference of the population in 
ancient and present times, as far as that depends on 
the climate, I must leave the solution to more in- 
genious persons. I have elsewhere shown, that 
in the same soil and under the same general state 
of drainage, a tract of land under the plough is 
less injurious than in pasture or meadow, whence 



CASES OF M ALALIA. 175 

it is possible that the greater salubrity of ancient 
times was an effect of a cultivation^ forced, or 
demanded, to a greater extent, by the superior 
political condition of Rome at that time. It is 
also easy to imagirie, that under such a state of 
things, many partial systems of drainage and 
care, added to those under the direction of the 
state, existed ; maintained by that population 
which, forced by circumstances, was also pre- 
served and renewed by that demand for industry, 
the elasticity of which would fill such blanks as 
were annually produced by disease. And if there 
is any truth in this latter view, one of the greatest 
differences between ancient and modern Rome 
on this point, may be rather a political than a 
physical question ; the difference between a state 
of activity and wealth despising disease, and one 
of sloth and poverty retiring before it, and in re- 
tiring, giving it also the means of acting with an 
accelerating effect. Assuredly Egypt has never 
been without its plagues and its fevers ; yet a 
vigorous government and an industrious people 
contrived to maintain, in spite of them, a condi- 
tion of population and wealth which has failed 
only under the more exterminating Malaria of 
Turkish ignorance and despotism. Such also is 
fast becoming the fate of Venice ; long noted. 



176 OBSCURE AND DISPUTED, kc, 

and even in modern times, for its peculiar salu- 
brity, but now rapidly undergoing a depopula- 
tion, in which disease, formerly unknown or un- 
noticed, is taking its share ; and probably de- 
stined in no long time, under Austrian love and 
wisdom, to become what even Rome threatens 
to be, or to suffer that fate under which Alex- 
andria, once more wealthy and not less proud, 
has long since fallen. 



177 



CHAPTER VI. 

On revolutions and chmiges which take place with 
regard to the production of Malaria, whether 
from natural causes or from artificial sanitary 
measures^ 

Independently of the revolutions or irregula- 
rities in the production of Malaria which depend 
upon season, and of which I shall treat hereafter, 
there are others which arise from changes in the 
condition of the generating soils ; and as these 
questions are of considerable importance in a 
statistical view, it will be necessary to examine 
them as far as the present state of information 
admits. And as the latter cause implies the re- 
medies applicable to the diminution or extermi- 
nation of this pernicious property in a soil, this 
branch of the subject will also find its place here, 
as far as it was not already noticed, and as is ad- 
missible in a work which does not profess to exa- 
mine that department of general economy. 

As the revolutions in the generation of Malaria 
can be judged of, like its existence, only by the 
diseases which it produces, and by changes as to 

N 



178 REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



their prevalence or severity, I must commence by 
remarking, that alterations as to the facility of 
its propagation or as to the direction in which it 
is propagated, may deceive us in attempting to 
decide on the absolute increase or diminution of 
this poison from the action of the soil itself. The 
cases of this nature will be deduced from the 
following chapter, where the propagation of Ma- 
laria is examined. It follows from all that has 
been said in the preceding chapters, that when- 
ever a soil formerly dry becomes marshy or wet, 
from any of those changes to which the surface 
is exposed, we may expect an increase or a new 
production of this substance, while it should, on 
the contrary, diminish or disappear in the reverse 
circumstances. Practically, this proves to be 
true ; while the latter change, following the drain- 
age and improvement of lands, points out that 
process as the remedy. But the modifications of 
change in both these instances being various, it is 
necessary to specify a few of the most essential. 

The simplest and the best known case of the 
diminution of Malaria, is that which arises from 
the drainage of marshes, swamps, or fens ; and, 
to that drainage, governments and the people 
both, have often had recourse with this very view, 
since this is a part of the subject on which there 



IN MALARIA. 



179 



are no diiFerences of opinion. This is the great 
change to which we must attribute the improve- 
ments of our own island in this respect ; and it 
is one also of which the effects are extensive 
throughout Europe in general; while, in the 
tropical climates, as well from the inherent diffi- 
culties of the subject itself, as from the wretched 
condition of most of the governments in these 
countries, little improvement of this nature can 
be quoted. It is probable that examples might be 
adduced from China ; but we are as yet almost 
unacquainted with the geography, statistics, or 
history of that country, though the former at 
least promises now, in the hands of Klaproth, to 
be no longer the disgrace of our maps. 

It is very well known that, in England, before 
the great increase of industry and knowledge, 
there were numerous and extensive tracts of 
marshy land ; while if we recede to a much more 
distant period, the early history of Britain will 
inform us that this was almost the general cha- 
racter of the inhabited parts of the country, since 
it was in such spots that our savage ancestors for- 
tified themselves from foreign as well as domestic 
enemies. It is to the Romans that we are in- 
debted for the great and early reforms of this 
nature, and very probably for the first ones ; since, 

N 2 



180 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



they were well acquainted with the injurious 
qualities of such land, and the method of reme- 
dying its evils while they also rendered it produc- 
tive. That the wet tracts or marshes of Somer- 
setshire were rescued by them, is almost matter 
of demonstration ; and it is equally probable that 
to them also we are indebted for the original em- 
bankments of the Thames. 

If a long blank of barbarism as to the inhabi- 
tants, and of ignorance as to ourselves, respecting 
the statistical condition of England, succeeds this 
period, neither have we any medical records by 
which we can prove, what nevertheless we may 
safely conclude, that fevers, of each nature, pre- 
vailed throughout those days of neglected im- 
provement and agriculture, to a degree infinitely 
greater than they do at present. This is what 
we might fairly decide on, without absolute evi- 
dence ; but as we descend in history, and as we 
trace the progress of agricultural improvement 
nearer to our own days, we discover, as 1 have 
formerly shown, facts enough to justify this con- 
jecture. It is from casual reading of various kinds 
indeed, that we must ascertain the prevalence of 
fevers and intermittents during the ruder periods 
of our history ; but when we can, by receding 
upwards from our own time, discover a gradually 



IN MALARIA. 



181 



greater prevalence of such diseases, and when we 
find the mehoration, reversely, following very ac- 
curately the progress of agricultural improvement, 
the whole conclusion appears to he amply justified. 

To examine local details with this view in our 
own immediate days, would be as easy as it might 
be rendered long, and as it would be superfluous. 
The progress of Lincolnshire, and of the fenny 
districts in general of the eastern side of England, 
in respect to improvement, and of an improvement 
closely accompanied by a diminution of the dis- 
eases of Malaria, is so recent and so familiar, that 
it is barely sufficient to name it ; while there is 
not a peasant of those districts to whom it is not 
even better known than to economists and phy- 
sicians. 

To notice here what has been the analogous 
history and the corresponding progress of Hol- 
land, of Germany, and of France, might afford 
some amusement to the reader ; but the detail 
would not justify the space which it would occupy, 
while I was moreover induced to mention some 
circumstances appertaining to this subject in a 
former chapter. It would be still more interesting 
to give the history of the improvements of Italy 
in this respect, and more particularly of those 
which relate to the attempts on the Pontine 



182 REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 

marshes in modern days. Bnt from a mass of 
materials so extensive, it is not easy to select and 
condense ; while the whole, affording matter for 
volumes, might easily lead to the inconvenient 
extension of an essay which it is my wish to re- 
tain within moderate bounds, in the hope of ren- 
dering it more widely useful. 

I shall now therefore proceed to remark, as 
connected with remedial objects, that while the 
drainage of pernicious soils is often a matter of 
great mechanical difficulty, as in the case of Hol- 
land and Lincolnshire, or of other lands lying 
beneath the level of the sea, so, as far as relates 
to the extirpation of Malaria, it is often also but 
partially effectual. The diseases are diminished, 
it is true, but they still continue ; as is notorious 
with regard to our own fenny counties and to 
Holland, and as is no less evinced, while with a 
much more splendid but unhappy celebrity, by 
the repeated failures or the very partial meliora- 
tions which have followed the exertions of the 
Papal government in Italy. 

The chief causes of this imperfect melioration 
or partial failure, will probably be often found 
among the circumstances enumerated in the fourth 
chapter ; and it was partly with a view to this 
object also, that the somewhat minute analysis 



IN MALARIA. 



183 



displayed in that chapter was made. To conduct 
a drainage for merely agricultural ends, is easy, 
or at least the mode and the result both, are ob- 
vious : to attempt the same for the purpose of 
remedying the insalubrity of any spot, be the 
character of that what it may, requires an intimate 
knowledge of every minute particular which may 
interfere with the expected result. Thus have I 
shown that the pernicious spot needs not have 
the obvious character of a marsh, and that it may 
also be very limited, or even minute ; and hence, 
that although an extensive tract of marsh is drain- 
ed, and sometimes even cultivated, there com- 
monly remains something which becomes a gene- 
rator of disease. This is almost inevitable, for 
example, in infra-marine fens, because the sea wall 
itself becomes a marshy focus of the Malaria. 
Still more is it inevitable in this case, from the 
necessary existence or construction of ditches, 
canals, or drains, almost unavoidably subject to 
alternations in the height of the water, and, in 
any case, even where the marsh is more elevated, 
becoming the unavoidable receptacles of that 
which is stagnant ; while subject also in that case 
to variations of level, from the effect of heat, and 
thus forming petty marshes of the worst quality. 
I must depend on the information of others for 



184 



REVOLUTIONS ANt> CHANGES 



what I have never examined ; and if that be cor- 
rect, then is it probable that the pestiferons nature 
of the Campagna of Rome, inasmuch as it does 
generate Malaria, is^ as I formerly remarked, more 
owing to its ditches than to the soil itself, which 
in reality is dry, at least in those seasons when 
the Malaria is most abundant and virulent. And 
such also appears to be the truth as to some other 
parts of Italy; respecting which, I have found 
in books, much more frequently than I could 
have expected, either a false description of the 
facts or a fanciful explanation, or, lastly, an at- 
tempt to involve the whole in mysteiy, as if the 
Malaria of that country was often produced by 
inexplicable causes. And I may remark here 
generally, in aid of those who may have found 
themselves bewildered in reading on this subject, 
that not only is this a common occurrence in the 
voluminous writers on Malaria, who are princi- 
pally also Italian ones, but that while, as far as 
my reading extends, I have not found one lumi- 
nous and philosophical view of the production 
and propagation of this poison, and little which 
can even serve the purpose of preventing diseases, 
so is it far too common to find entire volumes 
filled with idle hypotheses, respecting pyrites and 
volcanoes and mines, and attributing to electricity. 



IN MALARIA. 185 

aurora borealis, magnetism^ and similar visions, 
what the writers had forgotten to seek in that 
which ought to have been obvious to the most 
superficial and ignorant. I trust that it will now 
be found a much more intelligible piece of natural 
history at least than it has yet appeared ; and that 
what will be intelligible to all, will also be fol- 
lowed by corresponding utility. To proceed. 

Another analogous circumstance relating to 
the imperfect cure of fens and marshes, here re- 
quires notice also, though I was compelled to 
touch on it before when speaking of drainages ; 
because I believe that it is a frequent cause of the 
persistence of the diseases of Malaria when the 
great exciting causes have been removed. There 
are not many marshy tracts where a perfect water 
level can be expected, and, on the contrary, it is 
not uncommon for them to be irregular, or to 
contain hillocks and depressions, or portions de- 
cidedly lower than the general surface. Here the 
general drainage may be complete, or the land 
may even be cultivated, while there will still re- 
main swampy spots, or, as sometimes happens in 
high marshy grounds, small pools. Nor is it un- 
usual for these to be overlooked, at least in our 
own country, as of no pernicious efficacy ; parti- 
cularly should they contain clear water, and lie 



186 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



in a clayey or gravelly soil. Yet I have already 
shown that even on dry lands, such pools do ex- 
cite the diseases of Malaria ; and should they be 
numerous or extensive after the drainage of a- 
tract of land, they may be sufficient almost to 
nullify the effect of that, as far as the health of 
the inhabitants is concerned. This, I believe, is 
also one of the circumstances occurring in the 
Campagna of Rome, and it may aid in explaining 
the insalubrity of that noted spot. 

Having formerly noticed that Malaria is some- 
times the produce of low meadow lands, it will 
be obvious that when a marsh is recovered to this 
state only, the cure of the evil may be imperfect; 
a case not unfrequent in France, and which is 
much more likely to occur in a hot than in a 
cooler climate, from the effects of heat in the ge- 
neration of this substance. And, as I was then 
also obliged to point out, the cure of a marsh 
land is far more likely to be efficacious when, after 
drainage, it is subjected to the plough, than if it 
remained in grass ; with the exception, formerly 
noticed, of the first breaking up. It is not only 
that the power of being cultivated proves the 
better drainage of the soil, but because this spe- 
cies of vegetation has a greater tendency to eva- 
porate water and to prevent its accumulation ; 



IN MALARIA. 



187 



while, from the removal of the crop and the dry- 
ing of the stubbles, nothing remains from which 
Malaria can be produced. And if what is said 
respecting the rice fields of India be true, namely, 
that the poison is chiefly produced by the roots 
and fragments left on the ground after removing 
this crop, the remark is not an unimportant one, 
and may be applied even to the case of corn lands 
of this nature in European climates. 

I need not proceed further with this radical 
branch of the present svibject ; but those who 
may be interested in the question, may possibly 
deduce from it, hints as to the drainage of marshy 
tracts, in as far as one of the objects may be the 
extinction of disease. Those hints relate to the 
number, position, and construction of drains, 
and also of dykes ; and to the management of 
such plashes or pools as may arise from the irre- 
gularity of the ground. I cannot here enter into 
details, where every thing must be limited by ex- 
pence, situation, and possibilities of various kinds ; 
and since the remedies have been indicated, those 
who are interested will be able to ascertain how 
far they are capable of application. Let it be 
remembered always, that however human life 
may be despised in these cases, as being a mere 
political calculation, the question of human mi- 



188 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



sery or happiness is worth our attention ; while 
there may even be pecuniary interests concerned, 
since the rent of such land will always be more 
or less regulated by its salubrity, from many 
causes : and, in reality, there are some situations 
where land even becomes subject almost to a 
minimum rent, under a species of monopoly m 
the hands of the reckless or profligate, or among 
those who, from habit, are enabled to exist where 
competitors of another kind would perish or will 
not settle. 

That this is true, or rather that there are various 
circumstances relating to value, whether as that 
regards labour or land, property or rent, which 
are materially affected, or regulated, by the salu- 
brity of lands or localities, would be easily proved 
by a statistical selection of facts from various 
countries ; while the results would even suiprise 
those who have not been accustomed to consider 
this subject, or are in a state of defective infor- 
mation respecting it. It is a question, however, 
on which it would be tedious to enter ; but if it 
is one which amply deserves the attention of 
landholders, even now, it is one also of which 
the importance will become more sensible as the 
knowledge of this subject is extended, and as it 
becomes better known that the health of indivi- 



IN MALARIA. 



189 



duals, as well as the public safety, is often mate- 
rially in the hands of landowners. 

Where the principle of evil is so simple, the 
theory of the remedy is at least equally so, what- 
ever may be the fact as to the practice. Sea walls 
ought not, for example, to be allowed to become 
marshes or gardens for reeds ; ditches and drains 
ought to be kept clean ; while receptacles of 
water should be laid dry, by a drainage into the 
general conduit. Could every bank, whether of 
dyke or ditch, be a stone wall, for example, the 
remedy would be nearly complete, as far as re- 
lates to those ; and such a work approximates 
nearest to that, when it is of earth, or is free, as 
far as possible, from vegetation. 

These, and many similar regulations, are al- 
most too minute to be within the powder of go- 
vernments, even where they have bestowed the 
greatest attention on the general subject. Yet 
they were compulsory in the days of ancient 
Rome ; and where the state still holds in its 
hands those laws without which the greater im- 
provements of this nature cannot be conducted, 
it might regulate ; while its enactments would 
tend at least to diffuse the necessary knowledge 
as to other cases. Yet as far as our own country 
is concerned, the state, and the people both, must 



190 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



first be convinced that such improvement of the 
puhhc health is possible, and that the diseases at- 
tributed to Malaria in France and Italy, are 
actually produced by the same cause in England. 
That they were once thus produced, I have 
proved in the preceding 'chapter : because the 
diminution of disease, keeping pace with the im- 
provement of wet lands, proves the cause. The 
same diseases exist, if in less numbers ; the climate 
is at least as warm as it was : and why then are 
they not still produced by the same causes ? cor- 
respondently diminished, but here proved to be 
unconquercd. England was not formerly ex- 
empted from Malaria ; and on what grounds 
does it claim exemption now, when it possesses 
all the circumstances necessary for the production 
of that poison ? 

To proceed ; and to the reverse case ; it is 
plain that wherever a tract of dry land has been" 
converted into a marsh by inundation, whether 
from a breach of the sea or the overflowing of 
rivers, we must expect an event the opposite of 
the preceding, or the production of this poison 
where it was before unknown. I need not dwell 
on a subject so obvious ; but the history of all 
lands is full of events of this nature, even on a 
great scale ; while on a smaller one, if often 



IN MALARIA. 



191 



overlooked, it is a frequent occurrence, even in 
our own country, from the inundations of rivers, 
even where the effect is far short of producing a 
swamp : being often the neglected cause of what 
are popularly called sickly seasons^ in certain dis- 
tricts of England, as might easily be proved by 
a reference to facts in great number. 

Whatever revolutions in the production of 
Malaria, whether as to its absolute generation, 
increase, diminution, or disappearance, may occur 
from alterations in lakes, whether these consist in 
their increase, diminution, or drainage, they will 
be so easily explained from the general prhiciples, 
that it is unnecessary to dwell on them. If it 
would be abundantly easy to adduce specific facts 
in proof, from foreign countries, it cannot be ne- 
cessary: but I may quote one instance among 
ourselves, of the complete extirpation of Malaria 
by the drainage of a very small piece of water : 
and it is worth quoting, as equally proving a then 
almost unsuspected cause and its remedy. This 
was the North loch of Edinburgh ; formerly 
noted for producing agues, which, since the 
drainage of that spot, have disappeared. And 
even the insignificance of this spot renders it a 
a valuable example, as proving how vei y small a 
body of water is capable of being a permanent 



192 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



source of the disorders of this nature, even in a 
cHmate so httle favourable to the production of 
Malaria as is that of Edinburgh. They who know 
what the Noith loch was, must be incredulous 
indeed, if they do not admit that what occurred 
there, must be common every where ; and it 
would be somewhat difficult indeed, even from 
this sole evidence, to point out the pool in Eng- 
land which should not be a cause of fevers. 

There is little doubt that the state of the Ma- 
laria in the neighbourhood of the great American 
lakes, is undergoing changes from the alterations 
that take place along their shores ; but there are 
no observations as yet on which we can rely as 
to the fact itself, or at least I have inquired for 
such information in vain. And if I may put an 
eventual case, it is easy to see that when, at some 
future, if far distant day, the fall of Niagara 
shall have ceased to exist, from the wearing 
backwards of the bed of the river to its own lake, 
such an entire revolution will take place through- 
out this whole chain, as cannot fail to be at- 
tended with marked consequences as to their 
Malaria, be those results what they may. 

It is much more easy to ascertain the altera- 
tions in the production of Malaria which arise 
from that vacillation in the extent of lakes dc- 



IN MALARIA. 



193 



pendent on the changes of summer and winter ; 
most conspicuous in those which, Uke our Whit- 
tles ea mere^ are formed in flat lands. Unques- 
tionably, the heat of summer itself would in- 
crease the production, though the size of the 
water should remain unaltered ; but there is a 
great accession to the evil produced by the tracts 
of marshy land which are laid bare by its reces- 
sion, as well as from the exposure of the muddy 
bottom, as formerly discussed. This effect takes 
place most unquestionably in Switzerland, and 
much more notedly in Italy ; while, in Sicily, 
among other spots, the Lake Biviere, suifering a 
loss of two-thirds of its dimensions in summer, 
is a conspicuous example ; as is the lake or pool 
at Cagliari in Sardinia, where the fevers, thus 
produced, are noted among the most notorious 
in the Mediterranean. It appears also to be true 
of the Caspian sea ; and to an enormous extent, 
along the whole of its expanded shores ; but, 
what must interest us more, it is a very palpable 
result of the diminution in summer, of our own 
smaller ponds and pools, the poisonous qualities 
of which were formerly noticed. 

And this also may explain, perhaps entirely, 
what has hitherto appeared obscure respecting 
the disorders generated by the Malaria of these 

o 



194 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



narrow spots^ and the seasons in which they are 
active ; while by examining those particulars more 
closely, I shall, to what I formerly said, add fur- 
ther proof that they are causes of disease, how- 
ever that may be doubted or denied. If they do 
not so often produce disorders in spring as in 
autumn, or if, causing ordinary fevers, they do 
not give rise to intermittents, it is not solely from 
the differences of season, or heat, but from dif- 
ferences in their relative conditions at those sea- 
sons ; while thus also it is, that they more rarely 
generate simple and original intermittent, as this 
is chiefly a disorder of spring. And I think this 
point so important, from the immense number of 
these minute spots of water which are found all 
over England, and from the utter ignorance or 
want of suspicion respecting them, that I must 
be excused for urging it ; particularly, because, 
in many places, and in the neighbourhood of 
London especially, it is usual to leave such pools 
in excavating for gravel, even on the populous 
commons in its vicinity: diseases being thus 
sometimes brought among a population where 
they were formerly unknown. But if no ague is 
generated, or if at least this is rare, and if the 
consequences are hence denied, the solution is 
easy. In the spring, these pools are commonly 



> 



IN MALARIA. 



195 



full to the very margin ; whiie^ very generally^ 
the steep gravelly banks exclude any vegetation, 
as the depth of the water, or other causes, pre- 
vents also the growth of aquatic plants. But as 
summer advances, the water subsides, a vegeta- 
tion encroaches on the borders, the purely aquatic 
vegetables begin to flourish and die, and, in the 
autumn, these spots are so many petty marshes ; 
often also exposing muddy shores or bottoms to 
the action of the sun, and then producing the 
fevers which are attributed to the heat of the 
weather, to fruit, or to any other cause but that 
which is the real one ; and which might often be 
prevented or remedied by a different manage- 
ment, such as to prevent the lodgment of water : 
a proceeding which ought to be rendered a regu- 
lation of the police, by every parish at least where 
such operations are permitted. 

In speaking of marshes, I was compelled to 
notice the increase of Malaria produced by inun- 
dations of the sea and of rivers ; and I might 
then have added, that the alluvial plains traversed 
by rivers, although they should be otherwise not 
unhealthy, are frequently rendered so by that 
common operation, the transference of the stream, 
or the formation of new channels. The effect of 
this is, in fact, to produce swamps and pools, in 

o 2 



196 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



ground before dry ; changing them also, in suc- 
cessive seasons, or after new alterations of the 
stream, from one point to another ; and with in- 
jurious consequences far too notorious as to the 
Asiatic and American rivers at least, to admit of 
doubt. 

This is a very frequent occurrence in particu- 
lar, along the course of the Ganges and the Bur- 
hampooter ; and, in Bengal, it is in reality one of 
the principal sources of the fevers which are so 
often the cause of extensive epidemic mortality 
in that country. I have here pointed out 
casual inundations, leaving consequent pools or 
marshy spots, as being here, and^ elsewhere, an 
ordinary and almost an^annual cause of disease ; 
but this permanent change of channel is also one 
of great extent and importance ; the deserted 
reaches becoming lakes or pools, which are filled 
by the rainy season, to be again laid dry ; and 
which, at length, as vegetation begins to accu- 
mulate in them, form marshes, or swamps, and 
jungles, of the same character, and perhaps even 
more pestilential. 

Of the consequences arising from simple inun- 
dation, Egypt, as already remarked, produces a 
familiar example, since its season of fevers com- 
mences with the subsidence of the Nile ; and 



IN MALARIA. 



197 



thus also^ at Bassorah, the same effects^ and to a 
highly destructive degree, are produced after the 
overflowings of the Euphrates. This, or the let- 
ting loose the river, it is related, is a common 
mode of revenge on the inhabitants of that town, 
adopted by the Arabs ; while it is said that, on 
one occasion, 14,000 people perished in conse- 
quence. In Italy, from a similar cause, or, by 
the breaking loose of the Fogha in 1708, a bad 
epidemic was the consequence at Pesaro ; and 
the same events have frequently followed the in- 
undations of the Rhone, at Villeneuve St. George, 
Avignon, and elsewhere, as has also happened in 
Normandy, in the commune of the Greverie, from 
the inundation of the Vire. Similar occurrences 
are related of Silesia ; nor should I here forget 
that a noted and destructive fever was the conse- 
quence at Rome, from an inundation of the Tiber, 
in 1695. With respect to the Danube and the 
Don, the facts and the results are far more com- 
mon, and infinitely more notorious ; but I might, 
without difficulty, extend to any length, a class of 
illustrations which it cannot be necessary to pur- 
sue further. 

But there is a class of phenomena belonging 
to rivers, so intricate in its nature, and so im- 
portant in its consequences, as to require a more 



198 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



minute notice; while it concerns all countries, 
and our own among others, much as it is, like 
all else, overlooked or unsuspected. The state of 
things to which I here allude is also a steady 
cause of the progressive increase of Malaria ; 
affecting almost every river of the world, and 
further, proceeding, as to the whole globe, in an 
accelerating ratio, so as to lead to a constant 
augmentation and extension of diseases, unless 
where it is counteracted by other causes, natural 
or artificial. If, as relates to the Thames, I 
have reserved a notice ^of this fact for the next 
chapter, I cannot avoid speaking of it here, be- 
longing, as it especially does, to the matters 
under review. 

Every river which, by bringing down materials 
from the mountains and propelling the sea, has 
formed flat tracts of land, such as the great plain 
of Bengal, or those of the Oroonoko, and the 
Mississipi, with thousands more of less note and 
on all scales of dimension, must sometimes rise 
above its ordinary banks, causing inundations. 
Thus, when incommoding the adjoining lands in 
agricultural countries, it is embanked by art; 
while, in consequence of this process, the alkivial 
matters which would be dispersed over large 
spaces, from those changes of direction whence 



IN MALARIA. 



199 



the plains themselves are formed^, become confined 
to the channel itself ; deposited within a narrow 
space on its bottom. Thus they tend to raise 
the water in its bed, and, consequently, to 
cause it, on any increase, to overflow, still more 
certainly, the lands around. And as this elFect is 
the very consequence of the embankment, so, at 
any given point, the bank must be made to keep 
pace with the rise of the channel, that the re- 
straint may be effectual and constant. Hence as 
the river becomes more elevated, the ultimate 
result is the same as if the surrounding lands had 
been depressed to the same amount : and thus, 
while the stream which drained them once can 
drain them no longer, they become, first, mea- 
dows, and ultimately marshes. And if, in the 
former condition, they can still be drained by 
means of canals and floodgates, this process be- 
comes in time inefficient, and recourse must be 
had, as in Holland, to lifting machinery. 

Now, as the same process take place at every 
point along the course of the river, the embank- 
ment must also be extended further upwards to- 
wards its source ; or, while there is a necessity 
for elevating the former bank every where, so a 
new one becomes required where there was none 



200 REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 

before. Thus^ the including lands which did not 
formerly demand any drainage begin to require 
it ; or that which was dry land becomes meadow, 
the meadow becomes a marsh, and the marsh a 
swamp or a pool. And thus, throughout the 
whole process, does disease increase. The new 
land, as formed by nature, will be a focus of 
fevers : and hence a constant augmentation and 
extension of disease throughout the world, 
proportioned to the formation of new lands, 
whether naturally wet or rendered so by em- 
bankment. 

Such is the analysis of this particular cause of 
the revolutions of Malaria, a revolution of aug- 
mentation but too commonly ; while, if the ex- 
amples would be abundantly easy to produce, 
their very numbers render that unnecessary. 
But, reversely, insalubrious tracts of land may be 
rendered healthy, or the production of Malaria 
is diminished, by natural changes in the courses 
of rivers ; and in different modes. It may chance, 
for example, that the breaking loose of a river 
may inundate a tract of marshy land, or convert 
into an innoxious lake that which was a poison- 
ous swamp ; since, to inundate, by whatever 
means, provided the operation be effectual, is to 



IN MALARIA. 



201 



destroy the very sources of the poison. In an- 
other, and in the opposite mode, it is easy to 
conceive how a change in the channel of a river 
may lead to the drainage of a marshy tract : but 
there is one case of melioration, in the instance 
of rivers, which is progressive, as it is also exten- 
sive ; operating over the entire world, and coun- 
teracting that very increase of disease from the 
formation of alluvial lands, which I have just 
been describing. If the first effect of the depo- 
sition of alluvia^ is to form a marsh where the 
river meets the sea or a lake, and if such tracts 
are gradually extended by the same operations^, 
the successive deposition of new alluvia, while it 
may push forward a further marsh, raises that 
which was last formed, or converts the marsh 
into a meadow, and, successively, the meadow 
into dry land ; the remedy thus going hand in 
hand with the evil. Thus it also often happens, 
under favourable circumstances in the declivity 
of the shore, that no further marsh is formed, or 
the remedy becomes complete. And hence if, in 
some places, there may be a progressive augmen- 
tation of disease through ages, there are, in 
others, progressive amendments, or an entire re- 
moval of that source of pestilence which had 
once existed. Thutt we learn to explain the re- 



202 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



volutions for the better which have occurred with 
regard to the popular health in certain situations 
in our own country, in France, and perhaps more 
distinctly in Italy, the fertile parent of examples 
in every thing which belongs to the natural his- 
tory of Malaria. 

Such geological changes are the chief causes 
of those revolutions in the pubHc health which, 
from the testimonies of history, have occurred, 
since the classical times, in Italy, and probably in 
Greece i of which I have had occasion to allude 
to some, in different parts of this essay. Funda- 
mental, at least, they are ; whatever other causes, 
of an agricultural nature chiefly, may conspire 
with them, or whatever art may have effected in 
diminishing the produce of Malaria, or, uninten- 
tionally, in augmenting it. And that they have 
scarcely ever met the attention which they de- 
serve, in either case, is most apparent in all that 
has been written on this subject ; while we must 
often be surprised at the modern neglect of what 
seemed to have been most accurately studied by 
even the remoter ancients. It is further plain, 
that in many cases where rivers are concerned, 
the sea must also be an agent in the production 
of all such revolutions. It is by a joint action 
of the sea and the river where the meeting occurs. 



IN MALARIA. 



203 



that the alluvia are distributed ; and that distri- 
bution may be such as to produce either evil re- 
sults or good ones. In the lagunes of Venice, 
as I have elsewhere remarked^, the effect is good; 
or the sea carries off the alluvia which would 
otherwise form banks of pestiferous mud ; in the 
Pontine marshes, it appears to be the reverse ; 
but amid so many complicated effects as must 
occur in all these cases, it would be tedious to 
describe all that does or may happen at the colli- 
sion of rivers with the sea. 

But even without the aid of rivers, revolutions 
in the produce of Malaria take place in many 
countries, from casual events, or from that change 
of the mutual level of the sea and land, which 
geology ascribes to the subsidence or elevation 
of the latter; an alteration of level which ap- 
pears to be connected with the cause of earth- 
quakes, and which has, on various occasions, 
operated so conspicuously in Italy, in both direc- 
tions, and in some cases, in both alternately, as 
at Ravenna and near Naples. How marshy land 
might thus be laid dry, or dry land be rendered 
marshy, is sufficiently apparent ; while both these 
effects have, at different times, occurred at the 
very place which I have named, Ravenna, as in 
other parts of the Adriatic, and on the Mediter- 



204 REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 

ranean sliorc of Africa ; having, doubtless, been 
attended by changes in the salubrity of those 
districts. 

That casual irruptions of the sea have produced 
revolutions of the same nature, both for good 
and for evil, and on several conspicuous occasions, 
is well known. In these cases, the inundation 
has either extirpated disease by covering a marsh, 
or has excited it by rendering dry land marshy ; 
while, reversely, the retirement of the sea, has 
also, from acting in different ways, produced both 
the effects in question. Holland, and the shores 
of the Baltic in general, can produce historical 
testimonies in abundance as to these points ; 
while epidemic seasons of dreadful celebrity, and 
even of perennial continuance, have often arisen 
from such inundations. Our own Lincolnshire 
will furnish other examples ; and, doubtless, could 
we know the truth at present, the loss of the 
Goodwin lands by inundation proved the remedy, 
expensive as it was, for a wide tract of poisonous 
marsh. That the Persian gulf also produces ex- 
amples of the same nature, and to a terrific ex- 
tent, appears from the writings of many travel- 
lers ; if the specific facts have not been accu- 
rately distinguished. 

Of seasons of mortal epidemics, produced by 



IN MALARIA. 



205 



eruptions of the sea^ Calabria^ under its earth- 
quakes^ furnishes examples even more notorious 
than Holland and Denmark ; and the minor 
changes to which I have been alluding, will pro- 
bably explain most of the apparent mysteries 
which relate to the history of the revolutions of 
Malaria on sea shores ; among others, the un- 
exampled present condition of Civita Vecchia, 
that of Carthagena in Spain, and those of several 
places at the mouths of the Rhone, so different 
in point of salubrity now, from what they were 
in the times of the Romans ; changes which, in 
some cases, as combined with greater facility or 
new modes of propagation, have often extended 
their influence very widely. 

There is yet one fact connected with those re- 
volutions in which the sea is concerned, which 
has often been of great efficacy, though more fre- 
quently in diminishing than increasing the pro- 
duction of Malaria. This is the sand inundation, 
conspicuous on the shores of the Baltic and in 
Holland, as well as in Italy and France, and on 
the African shore, and sufficiently remarkable in 
many places in our own island. By this, marsh 
land is not only raised, but covered and dried ; 
and thus have many poisonous tracts been reme- 
died in the countries which I have named. That, 



206 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



in some situations however, the sand flood has 
produced evil instead of good, is most certain ; 
by forming external bulwarks, and thus retaining 
the land water in the form of marshes or lakes : 
an event of which our own country presents 
many examples, though on a small scale. 

If I recollect aright what I have not seen for 
many years, it would be easy to comprehend the 
nature and action of many of these circumstances, 
as far as the sea is concerned, by an inspection of 
the connected shores of Sussex and Kent, which 
I select as an example out of many others, be- 
cause it is well known. A geologist at least, 
would have no difficulty in seeing, here, where a 
pernicious surface has been produced and where 
it has been remedied ; and how both these effects 
have resulted at different points, from similar or 
opposed operations, or how that very change 
which has amended one spot has disordered an- 
other. Hence, in practice, have arisen those al- 
terations in.the salubrity of many of the situations 
on the English coasts, sometimes for good and 
sometimes for evil, which are well known to the 
residents, if they are seldom able to account for 
them, and therefore often view them as of a mys- 
terious nature. 

I may now proceed to remark, that to remove 



IN MALARIA. 



207 



a Malaria by inundating land which cannot be 
drained, will always be a very compound ques- 
tion ; and if I cannot just now quote a case of 
such an experiment, either successful or other- 
wise, it is a proposal which has long been de- 
bated in Dominica, respecting that flat tract of 
mangrove in Prince Ruperfs Bay, which is the 
demonstrated cause of the frequent and severe 
mortalities of this ill chosen spot. How obvi- 
ously necessary it is that in such an operation, 
the inundation, whether by means of fresh water 
or of the sea, should be accurate and steady, I 
need not say ; since it is plain that an ineffectual 
operation might aggravate the evil which it was 
intended to remedy. 

The last of the revolutions of Malaria, as to 
increase or decrease, depending on alterations in 
the soil, is that which belongs to woods ; but it 
is a question which chiefly concerns the intertro- 
pical or hot climates. The principle of judgment 
in this case is as easy as in any other, from con- 
sidering the causes of the Malaria. The woods 
which produce it in those climates, are the close 
and marshy forests or jungles ; and as these can 
scarcely be affected but by destruction, it is only 
by eradicating or burning them that the diseases 
which they produce arc extirpated. Thus it is. 



208 REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 

that as the increase of popuhition produces this 
consequence in all woody countries, the natural 
effect of clearing the ground for cultivation^ is 
often also the cause of the diminution or extir- 
pation of fevers ; while I have formerly sho^^Ti 
how the very reverse effect sometimes takes place. 
If other reasons^ sufficiently easy to judge of, 
conspire, this is at least a fundamental cause of 
the improvement of the health of the people in 
new countries. Thus also is it, reversely, that 
when, in consequence of famine, destructive wars, 
impolicy, or bad government, agriculture and 
population diminish, the diseases of such climates 
increase, even in an excelling ratio, from this 
cause among others ; as the vigour of vegetation 
soon restricts the once opened soil, to restore it 
to somewhat like its original state of thickets 
and forests and neglect. It is not poverty and 
famine alone which are the causes of the increase 
of disease in these cases, though such is the ex- 
planation commonly given and received. The 
rude land gradually encroaches on the cultivated: 
if pasture succeeds to agriculture as a more 
manageable economy, if drainage or embankment 
is neglected, if rivers break loose and marshes 
replace what was meadow, so do forests and 
thickets and jungles rise and spread, and as man 



IN MALARIA. 



209 



becomes weaker^ nature becomes more powerful; 
reclaiming her rigbts^ and bringing calamity and 
disease upon neglect and poverty. We have but 
to look at the Turkish states to see how truly 
this is the picture of the country which that ig- 
norant and stupid government rules, if rule it can 
be called, but to destroy. - 

The remedies, in this particular case, often 
concern us, as colonists, most seriously ; and they 
are easily deduced from the general principles. 
To destroy such forests and woods where they 
exist, to prevent them from increasing, and to do 
all this by occupying the ground in another 
manner, form the remedy and the prevention 
both ; while, fortunately, it is a remedy which in 
general amply repays its expence, in the augmen- 
tation of useful produce and population. It is 
true that there are cases, even in our own pos- 
sessions, where this is impracticable, from me- 
chanical or local and physical difficulties, no less 
than from the irrepressible vigour of vegetation, 
and, further, from the useless or inapplicable na- 
ture of the fundamental soil, as well as from de- 
ficiency of population, or want of demand for 
the produce. But there are some, in which we 
must perhaps blame the policy or the councils of 

p 



210 



REVOLUTIONS AND CHANGES 



our colonial governments, for neglect of what 
they might sometimes remedy with very little 
difficulty. 

For India and its councils there is however an 
ample excuse as to this subject, great as are the 
evils produced by its uncleared lands ; while 
there appears no want of conviction as to the ex- 
tent and nature of the evil or its cause, or as to 
the only remedy. The magnitude of the evil 
could not possibly, in fact, have been overlooked ; 
having been almost the destruction of armies, 
and sometimes more exterminating than all the 
collision of actual war. The difficultv, it must 
be admitted, is considerable, if it is not absolutely 
insuperable ; as it consists in no less than deter- 
mining that obscure and most complicated ques- 
tion under our supreme government, namely, 
where the real title to the lands lies. The de- 
struction of jungles, and, with that, the diminu- 
tion of fevers, with the consequent augmentation 
of agriculture, may be but partial motives, per- 
haps, to an investigation and settlement which 
shall set this point at rest ; but, added to all the 
other inconveniences which attend this unsettled 
condition of property, they may be expected to 
assist in stimulating the councils of India to an 



IN MALARIA. 



211 



effectual exertion, whenever an opportunity, not 
probably to be commanded, shall occur. But to 
terminate a subject which, by means of local re- 
ferences, might be converted into a volume, I 
may now add, that whatever other revolutions 
may occur in the influence of Malaria, they are 
dependent on its propagation rather than on its 
production, and will therefore be deduced, with- 
out any formal enumeration, from the statements 
forming the next chapter. 



^ 212 



CHAPTER VII. 

On the pi'opagation of Malaria, 

To ascertain all the circumstances under which 
Malaria is generated, is most obviously the es- 
sential part of every philosophical inquiry into 
this subject ; and while, as it is here, in its very 
germs, that it may most effectually be checked or 
eradicated, this also is the question which chiefly 
concerns the people or their governments. But 
the propagation of Malaria occupies at least the 
place of next importance in the philosophy of 
this subject ; while, though often far less under 
our regulation or controul, we are not absolutely 
powerless in protecting ourselves from the dis- 
eases of which it is the cause, by diverting or 
impeding it. To know the remedies, it is first 
however necessary to make ourselves acquainted 
with the facts ; to investigate all the means by 
which, and the circumstances under which, it is 
propagated. 

Here too I must regret that a deficiency of 
information disables me from giving that regular 
analysis and detail of those circumstances, with- 



PROPAGATION OF MALARIA. 



213 



out which philosophy ought never to be satisfied. 
The observations of any individual on such a 
subject must be narrow, and my own have been 
peculiarly impeded ; while in seeking for infor- 
mation, whether published or oral, there is so 
little of fact to be extracted from mountains of 
rubbish, and so many obscurities and contradic- 
tions after all this is done, that, Avheii the labour 
is gone through, the whole is little better than a 
tract intersected by wide chasms, or a collection 
of fragments. Hereafter, it must be hoped that 
whatever is here defective will lead to that truth, 
the arrival of which was never yet accelerated by 
conjecture or confident falsity ; or by those plau- 
sible expressions and terms, which too often pass 
for ideas. 

Whatever Malaria may be in its simple state, 
it is only as united to the atmosphere that we 
know it; and we must therefore view it as an aeri- 
form fluid, as far as the question of its propaga- 
tion is concerned. It must indeed be considered 
as the very atmosphere itself, where it exists ; 
and its propagation therefore must be primarily 
regulated by those laws which govern the motions 

of currents of air. 

Here, unfortunately, occurs our first and fun- 
damental difficulty; for we know nothing, in 
reality, of those laws. The theory of the winds 



214 



PROPAGATION OF 



is one great obscurity ; the limited, internal, and 
less remarkable motions of the air, are, if pos- 
sible, a subject of still greater darkness. Thus 
it is that we can predict little respecting the pro- 
pagation of Malaria through the agency of cur- 
rents of air, and are compelled to judge locally 
by local observations, or by experience which we 
cannot transfer to other localities. But as this 
substance, whether gasiform or not in its origin, 
is probably a compound, whether mixed with the 
air, or dissolved in it, or in some state of chemical 
combination, if must be subject to chemical laws 
as well as to those mechanical ones which regu- 
late the motions of aeriform fluids. 

And though the chemical constitution of at- 
mospheric air is constant, as far as we at present 
know, the atmosphere itself is a variable sub- 
i^tance ; since, to its three radical elements, is 
added water, varying in quantity, and probably 
also in the condition which it holds as to the es- 
sential ingredients. And, since the matter of 
Malaria is united to this variable fluid, that union 
may be more perfect, or more abundant in one 
condition of the air than another, while there 
may also be conditions in which it will not com- 
bine at all Thus also may that union be afiected 
by variations of temperature ; while we can fur- 
^ ther conceive it capable of being decomposed or 



MALARIA. 



115 



destroyed by actions^ however unknown their na- 
ture is to us, connected with certain conditions 
of the atmosphere. 

Thus the propagation of Malaria from its ge- 
nerating source, may be influenced by variations 
dependent on these causes ; it may be produced 
in abundance, but the existing atmosphere may 
be incapable of absorbing, or of conveying it, or 
else it may be destroyed by the union ; and hence 
our expectations may be disappointed when we 
reason solely on its mechanical propagation. 
And it is probable, by analogy, that this is true ; 
while the evidences from fact, will find their place 
shortly. Thus, certain states of the atmosphere, 
independent of motion, and therefore probably 
chemical, are found to dissolve and communicate 
contagion better than others; while there are 
also conditions in which it seems to die, or is not 
propagated at all. Thus it is, also, familiarly, 
with regard to odours ; and very notedly with the 
odour of flowers, and with that general vege- 
table perfume which fills the atmosphere of spring 
and early summer. 

I have said that Malaria was probably a com- ^ 
pound substance ; an inference drawn from the 
mode of its production, and from its analogy to 
contagion ; and the compound nature of this 



/ 



216 



PROPAGATION OF 



latter substance, is proved by the facility with 
which it is destroyed or decomposed under new 
chemical agencies. This is not so well demon- 
strated respecting Malaria ; that is, by direct che- 
mical experiment ; but the fact can scarcely ad- 
mit of doubt, when we know that it never pene- 
trates certain atmospheres which are impure or 
charged with foreign ingredients ; as will be 
pointed out hereafter. We can scarcely therefore 
err in assuming the chemical destruction of Ma- 
laria as a law concerned in the phenomena be- 
longing to its propagation. 

But there is yet a fact concerned with this, 
which appears indisputable, though our know- 
ledge of the nature of Malaria does not enable 
us to give its theory. This is, that it is capable 
of being attached to certain solid substances ; to 
vegetables for example, and, possibly, to the soil 
itself. I use the word attachment rather than 
union, though even that term is perhaps too 
strong ; but whatever the relation be, it seems to 
possess an analogy to the case of the matters of 
contagion, in which an absolute and durable 
union takes place with many solid bodies, as if 
they were themselves solidified in the substances. 
The difference however in these two cases is, 
practically, of great importance ; as there is no 



MALARIA. 



217 



evidence that the matter of Malaria is thus du- 
rably attachable and transferable^ any more than 
that it is regenerated through the medium of a 
diseased body, as contagions are. Were the 
plague indeed the produce of a vegetable Malaria, 
as has been supposed by some persons, then would 
one of its varieties at least be as attachable as 
contagion ; while it would also be reproduceable 
by the animal actions. Were any remitting or 
marsh fever, decidedly originating in Malaria, 
capable of similar reproduction and transference, 
as has been said, this would form a material ad- 
dition to the object of this inquiry ; but whatever 
the controversies may have been on this question, 
the opinion has not been established ; while it is 
a dispute appertaining to the medical portion of 
this work. 

The way seems now cleared, as far as it can 
be at present, for examining into the facts which 
relate to the propagation of Malaria ; and the 
first, as the simplest case, is that of proximity. 
The place in which it is produced, or that which 
is nearest, ought to suffer most from its action ; 
it being also presumed that the atmosphere is at 
rest. And that this is the fact, with some excep- 
tions to be hereafter noticed, consists with all 
experience. Hence it is that residence on or 



218 



PROFAGAXrON OF 



near a marsh is injurious or hazardous ; while, 
in the case of more narrow spots, it is probable 
that such absolute contact or immediate vicinity 
may even be necessary to the action of the poison, 
since a small distance may render its power null 
by dilution. And it is both reasonable and con- 
sistent with experience, to measure the danger^ 
whether as to effect, or power of propagation, by 
some ratio derived from the magnitude of the 
pernicious soil, or the quantity of Malaria ge- 
nerated. 

If the general experience of all countries con- 
firms this view of the danger of proximity, it is 
strikingly proved by the practice of Italy in for- 
mer times ; attentive to this subject as it appears 
to have been, even from the earlier periods of 
the Roman power. Hence it is, that so many of 
its ancient towns are situated on hills ; while, in 
spite of the opposite practice in the foundation 
and growth of Rome, it is evident, from the 
Roman statistical writers, as I have shown, that 
they were fully aware of the evil, and of the 
value of this remedy. 

It ought to be superfluous, to ground upon 
this simple fact, cautions or advice respecting 
the choice of places, whether for towns, or 
houses, or encampments ; yet we see that this 



Malaria. 



219 



hcis been overlooked or despised^ in uncountable 
instances ; not only in former times but in recent 
ones, in our very days, and in all countries. If 
ignorance may often be permitted to excuse itself 
for the original error, there are abundant cases 
where there is no excuse for having continued to 
build and remained to die, through generations. 
Rome perhaps became too gigantic during its 
period of ignorance, to be afterwards abandoned 
or transferred : but there was no apparent reason 
for perpetuating Calcutta, when, from the very 
hour almost, of its foundation by Charnock, its 
destructive situation had been demonstrated. 
That Holland should have persisted in inhabit- 
ing that Batavia which it had studied to render 
even more poisonous than nature had already 
done, by the model of its own pestiferous father- 
land, is a problem which Holland must be al- 
lowed to explain as it best can. 

It must be presumed that ignorance, as often 
as convenience, will also be the defence of Spain 
respecting the Havannah, Vera Cruz, and so 
many more of its American settlements ; where, 
in some cases at least, death seems to have been 
courted, and where a little thought at first, or a 
little resolution and sacrifice afterwards, would 
often have avoided the evil. Thus also may 



220 



PROPAGATION OF 



France defend its ancient towns of Nantes, 
Rennes, Dol, and many more in the north, with 
others in the central and southern parts, beyond 
numbering ; by the plea of ignorance added to 
that of necessity ; while, for Holland, through- 
out, necessity is a paramount plea. But the ex- 
ample and the knowledge of Italy were open to 
the whole world; and as little was medical and 
statistical information in such a condition as to 
have admitted any excuse for St. Lucie and New 
Orleans ; as for endless other settlements, equally 
ill chosen, in almost every European colony and 
conquest throughout the world. 

But not to extend examples of this nature, it 
must be admitted that convenience and necessity 
often produce strong pleas in favour of a bad 
choice, or of a persistence in the original bad 
choice of the enemy whose ground has been oc- 
cupied. Situations of this pernicious nature are 
often the most fertile and the most populous, 
they are often convenient maritime posts or sea- 
ports, and they are often the strongest and the 
most defensible places. But there is often also a 
choice, without losing all these advantages or en- 
countering all those evils ; while, unfortunately, 
it has seldom appeared as if the uncertainty of 
human life and the quantity of human suffering 



MALARIA. 



221 



ought to enter into the poHtical calculation. Yet 
even on the views of public economy, this is a 
question deserving of consideration. Human 
happiness is, after all^ the end and object of all 
this conquest and commerce ; and in acting thus, 
we surrender the object of pursuit in pursuing it. 
Nor is the security of life less necessary to pro- 
fitable industry, than security of property ; while, 
in this case, the legislating founder of a colony 
professes to ensure by direct laws, what he de- 
stroys by the very roots. And thus also does it 
follow that, on security of life, depend, mainly, 
morality and good conduct ; since, in human his- 
tory, it is a noted truth, that the maxim let us 
eat and drink for to-morrow we die," becomes, in 
such Batavian situations, the too common rule of 
a loose life. Were it necessary to prove our own 
neglect on this subject, I might quote, what I 
now may with safety. Prince of Wales's island ; 
but I am more pleased to pass from such 
questions. 

If I have here dispersed the remarks on the 
remedial processes against Malaria, by bringing 
them into juxta-position with the particular cir- 
cumstances to which they are applicable, it was 
that I might avoid the repetition which must 
have followed the allotment of a separate chapter 



222 



PROPAGATION OF 



to them ; though producing thereby^, inconve- 
niencies, I hope, of less weight. And I must 
therefore introduce here a few further remarks 
on this subject as it relates to miUtary proceed- 
ings ; though I must divest them of much of 
their authority, by suppressing whatever, as be- 
longing in particular to recent facts, might give 
pain to some one. The bare suspicion of intend- 
ing censure should be avoided, where the sole 
object has been, by means of facts which ought 
to be considered as mere evidences, to inculcate 
useful knowledge and prevent further evils. It 
is impossible to say what will be right without 
observing w^hat has been wrong ; to correct 
error without pointing out error, to produce evi- 
dence without examples. Had there been no- 
thing to blame, this essay Avould never have been 
written ; for there would have been nothing to 
teach. 

It is a general observation which applies to all 
cases as well as the present, that in addition to 
the evils which Nature herself has inflicted on us, 
in the production of Malaria through unavoid- 
able causes, man is too often accessary to his 
own miseries as arising from this great source of 
disease, through his ignorance ; not unfrcquently 
also, through his carelessness, his fatalism, his 



MALARIA. 223 

cupidity, his malgovernment, his vices, or, what 
is more excusable, his poverty. Planting vv^ood 
or cutting it down, clearing lands or suffering 
them to lie waste, turning the courses of rivers 
or neglecting them, embanking or neglecting to 
embank, digging canals and ponds for use or or- 
nament, in these and many other things, nations 
and people have often been their own greatest 
enemies ; not seldom from ignorance or inatten- 
tion : while from introducing particular kinds of 
cultivation, from the improper choice of places 
for towns, or houses, or military defences, and in 
far more, we may find instances of the conse- 
quences of all the leading causes of the evils in 
question. On many of these points it is the bu- 
siness of governments and of education to 
enlighten where they cannot direct or interfere : 
where military operations are concerned, the 
state has but to order and be obeyed ; taking 
care that its agents are enlightened, wherever it 
must trust. If it has not always watched as it 
ought, it is only by hearing of its errors that it 
will learn to do what it has neglected. 

In addition to what I have here said respect- 
ing the injudicious choice of seats for towns or 
colonies, by all governments, and of much more 
which it would be long to detail, and in addition 



224 



PROPAGATION OF 



also to the careless or injudicious mode in which 
naval services are often performed on the shores 
of tropical and insaluhrions climates^ I cannot, 
before attending to what is merely military, avoid 
a remark on the mode in which it has so fre- 
quently been attempted to penetrate Africa. The 
dangers of the interior investigation^ arising from 
the tropical fevers^ are sufficiently great already ; 
while, to these, have been added, in almost every 
instance, the sometimes greater, and generally 
unnecessary ones incurred from entering the 
country by the avenues of the great rivers, which 
are, above all, the most destructive seats of this 
pestilence. Thus have expeditions been defeated 
by the deaths of the travellers, even at the out- 
set ; forming an accumulation of evil, of which 
the facts are familiar. I know not why this plan 
has not been abandoned ; when in addition to 
what ought to be obvious to any one acquainted 
with Africa, the comparative success of the at- 
tempts by way of the desert, has demonstrated 
the superior advantages and security of this route. 
I need scarcely point out, in addition, the very 
obvious oversight or obstinacy of attempting ef- 
fectually to explore this most pestiferous country 
by means of unseasoned or unhabituated Eu- 
ropeans ; while it is not very easy to discover 



MALARIA. 



225 



why this could not be done by the aid of negroes 
or natives educated for that purpose ; when so 
many individuals of these races have given ample 
proofs of their capacities^ as well as of the possi- 
bility of attaching them permanently to European 
interests. 

But, as to public matters, it is chiefly in mili- 
tary service that the ravages made by the diseases 
of Malaria have been frequent, serious, and often 
ruinous ; while if those have sometimes been in- 
evitable, they have much too often been the 
results of neglect, or of what should be called 
ignorance, were it not that there is in reality no 
ignorance on this subject in the age, whatever 
there may be in the individuals directing or ex- 
ecuting. Lancisi, Sennert, Orlandi, Platner, De 
Baumes, Zimmermann, Pringle, Lind, Blane, 
Jackson, hundreds more, writers without num- 
ber and writings without measure, have explained 
this subject, if not always very philosophically, 
yet at least as to the useful or necessary details, 
sufficiently ; leaving no excuse, since those who 
can do no more, may at least read and follow. 
Nor is even experience wanting, and in abun- 
dance, nor living examples of knowledge and 
caution on these points : and still it would seem, 
as if fated, that the wisdom and experience of 

u 



226 



PROPAGATION OF 



one generation should be forgotten by the next, 
that peace should extirpate the knowledge that 
had been acquired in war, and that what is pos- 
sessed by enlightened individuals should never 
spread so as to illuminate the public mind. 

How far the great practical errors committed 
on this point have been the consequence of over- 
sight in the education of those who, in any coun- 
try, direct and command, and how far they have 
flowed from a deficient and faulty medical edu- 
cation, wheresoever established, are questions 
which it would not be very proper, nor very 
agreeable, to discuss in this place ; but be the 
causes what they may, the weighty and serious 
importance of all that is connected with such 
neglect, cannot be too often nor too strongly 
urged. To despise, habitually, dangers to which 
we are not ourselves exposed, is natural, as it is 
easy ; but it is too late to change the smile of 
superciliousness to repentance, when the destruc- 
tion of armies, or perhaps the loss of battles or 
of campaigns, has been the result. Were the 
mortalities caused in armies by disease, the con- 
sequence of this neglect or ignorance, to be 
placed in comparative array with those produced 
by the pure casualties of warfare, the account 
would present an aspect, perhaps little suspected, 



MALARIA. 



227 



even by statesmen : whether or not it would pro- 
duce those effects as to the future which it has 
seldom yet done in the past. 

Examples might be accumulated without end, 
and the history would be a fearful one. It h said 
" that 10,000 men were lost by Walcheren : how 
far the campaign itself was lost through the same 
cause, it is not needful to ask. It is now a less 
painful as well as a less offensive case, to tell, 
that when the French army attempted Naples in 
1528, they were reduced within a few days, from 
28,000 to 4000 men, by choosing an injudicious 
encampment at Baiae. Similar, and from a simi- 
lar cause, was the great mortality in Hungary in 
1566. There were excuses in 1528 and 1566, 
which did not exist afterwards, and least of all in 
the last war ; yet all European wars, ever since, 
can furnish examples in abundance of the same 
nature, from the ignorant or careless choice of 
encampments, as from other modes of ignorance 
and neglect, even to the selection of pestiferous 
situations for permanent barracks. It was a for- 
tunate discovery in fortification that a dry ditch 
was more defensible than a wet one ; since the 
safety and efficiency of a garrison seem never to 
have entered the minds, even of the Vaubans, the 
Coehoorns, and the Cormontaignes ; though far 

a 2 



228 



PROPAGATION OF 



more intimate^ it must be supposed^ with Malaria 
than ourselves. 

It is much to be wished, that, not only on the 
subject of war, but in every case of ordinary life, 
it could once be impressed on the minds of the 
people, and of their governments, of all those 
whom it may jn any way concern, that the dis- 
eases of this nature, that the mortahty of war by 
sickness, are really not a necessary part of the 
order of things ; not unavoidable mischances to 
be placed in tlie calculation of events, not the 
irrepressible course of nature ; but that they are 
the produce of our own ignorance, our own neg- 
lect, or our own prejudices. That which is 
esteemed unavoidable, is suifered without remon- 
strance, almost without regret : it is Fate, it is 
held irremediable, and it is not remedied. It is 
perhaps calculated that 10,000 men can effect the 
service desired ; but it is calculated also that the 
half must die of sickness : 20,000 are appointed. 
Thus is endured what is expected ; but let it 
once be believed that it is not fated, not unavoid- 
able, and means will be taken to avoid it. Man 
does not want exertion, and as little does he want 
talents, would he but employ and cultivate them ; 
but, indolent in both, he sits down and consoles 
lii^nself with believing that thus it was destined. 



MALARIA. 



229 



And if, from want of knowledge, so has simi- 
larly destructive conduct been adopted in spite of 
it ; in opposition to information and caution, and 
even to experience and demonstration. If the su- 
percilious contempt with which Malaria is often 
viewed, has often been dearly paid for, even by 
individuals, still more bitterly have the " Achivi" 
suffered from that of their rulers. It was not the 
case of our army indeed ; but when nearly a whole 
regiment was not only incapacitated at Malta in 
one night, and with the loss also of great num- 
bers, but rendered nearly useless through the 
whole war, by persisting in occupying a village 
which the natives had abandoned, and against the 
most pressing remonstrances, it was a case which 
that army could have spared. And similarly, three 
or four times, and by means of as many successive 
parties, was it determined to occupy as a Telegraph 
a rocky point in Sicily between Rasaculmo and 
Spadafora, though thirty men were successively 
destroyed by that Malaria against which the na- 
tives had warned the commanding officer. And 
thus was a similar obstinacy on the part of the 
French, during one of their early occupations of 
Corsica, punished by the successive and not less 
rapid extermination of every garrison, for a long 



230 PROPAGATION OF 

period, by which they attempted to hold San 
Fiorenzo. 

Thus also was our hospital at Port Mahon 
fixed on the precise spot where it received the 
whole Malaria of that pernicious valley, pestifer- 
ous during four months of the year ; while by 
choosing the elevation of Cape Mola, at its north- 
eastern margin, these bad effects would have been 
entirely avoided. And the truth must be told ; 
that, whether in this case or any others, the me- 
dical staff was not sufficiently consulted or em- 
powered, and therefore blameless, this was not 
the fact every where nor always ; since, at the 
commencement at least of those services, it 
evinced the same contempt of JNlalaria, (a con- 
tempt which in reality was ignorance,) as the 
military itself did, and as was displayed by all our 
early travellers in Italy. Nor could a stronger 
proof of that be given, than from the whole his- 
tory of Walcherenj in the details as in the ori- 
ginal arrangements and project ; since little selec- 
tion was made even as to the sites of the hospi- 
tals, which were, on the contrary, often chosen 
in the very worst places of this pestiferous island. 
And lest exclusive blame should here appear to 
be thrown on ourselves, it was in consequence of 



MALARIA. 



231 



OrlofF's choice of cantonments at Naussa, in Pa- 
rosj itself one of the most pestilential spots of all 
Greece, that this army was nearly destroyed, and 
the objects of that campaign frustrated. 

And when I make use of the word contempt, I 
state a fact perfectly known to our naval and mi- 
litary officers, at least at the commencement of 
our wars in the Mediterranean, and indeed long 
after : a contempt and an incredulity respecting 
Malaria, to which thousands of lives were sacri- 
ficed. And if there are hundreds who have lived 
to believe in what they once despised, purchasing 
their conviction however at a severe price, many 
have paid the forfeit of their ignorance and pride 
with their lives. Nor have I stated what, even 
respecting our travellers in Italy, is not known to 
every Italian ; to the very people as to persons of 
education ; cautioning in vain, those, upon whom, 
truly English in all their opinions, caution and 
advice were thrown away. They too have at 
length begun to concede and to learn ; but for 
those who are now less confident in their own 
omniscience, their predecessors have paid the dear 
ransom of their lives, and not in small numbers. 
It has been well said at Rome, that none but 
dogs and Englishmen walk in the heat of the 
day ; and it might have been added, that no one 



232 



PROPAGATION OF 



but an Englishman sneers at Malaria^ though, as 
on other occasions, often suffering deeply under 
his imagined superiority. It is scarcely credible 
that all this should have been, and, doubtless, 
that it will all be again ; that human life has 
been thus sacrificed, by thousands, almost by mil- 
lions ; and where knowledge did exist and was 
attainable. But perhaps it is fated that man's 
obstinacy should effect that which nature might 
not so easily attain through any other road; 
while the very slender specimens which I have 
given, scarcely implying a life in ten thousand, 
may enable a reader to conjecture what, on this 
point alone, must have been the history of war, 
even of modern war. 

But I must not make this a book of anecdotes ; 
while I wish, if possible, to impress on the minds 
of all those whom it may especially concern, the 
necessity of studies which ihey cannot omit if 
they would do their duties, and of investigations 
and attention without which the duties of a com- 
manding officer or a quarter-master general can- 
not be properly executed in any climate, far least 
in a hot one. To say that it is the duty of the 
medical staff, may be abstractedly true ; but, in 
practice, or in the field, it appears not to have 
been so considered ; while the accidents to which 



MAI.ARIA. 



233 



I have alluded seem to prove, either that this staff 
is not sufficiently consulted, or has not sufficient 
power ; since I must not suppose that it is ever 
deficient either in knowledge or attention. That 
the fault has existed, is most certain ; and that, 
somewhere^ blame must alight ; where that should 
fall, it is for others to determine. 

Be this as it may, a military commander must 
at least desire to know the nature of the duties 
entrusted to those whom he commands ; while 
with respect to this particular subject, though its 
end be medical^ or rather, appertaining to sani- 
tary measures, it is one which is at least as attain- 
able, by a military man as a merely medical one ; 
since it implies that knowledge of ground so in- 
dispensible in strategy, which a very slight addi- 
tion of discernment respecting pernicious soils 
would render perfect as to the objects in question. 

If any additional inducement can be offered 
for these ends^ I wish it could be impressed on 
the minds of military men, as of every one con- 
cerned with hot climates, that when they are ter- 
rified with the very name of the plague, and are 
thus led to adopt precautions which certainly 
cannot be too rigidly followed, they forget that 
the plague is actually as nothing in the scale of 
mortality, when compared to the diseases of Ma- 



234 



PROPAGATION OF 



laria ; to the fevers, the dysenteries, and the cho- 
leras of the tropical regions, and to all those end- 
less consequences which disable those whom they 
do not absolutely destroy. Yet such is the weight 
of one name compared to another; while the 
precautions against such diseases, as universal 
and perennial as the visitations of plague are 
confined and rare, are very widely within our 
power. 

To detail these precautions, and to apply them 
to every military case which may occur, would be 
again to traverse the ground already passed. I 
can but refer, as before, to general principles ; 
but I will terminate this episodical discussion 
with a case that illustrates a principle as to pre- 
cautions, which, in certain countries, it will often 
be essential to recollect. 

In this instance, an army was encamped in a 
very pestiferous plain ; yet the health of the men 
did not sulfer, because, being near the shore, the 
sea breezes, predominating at that season, swept 
back the Malaria into the interior country. From 
some cause, the encampment was transferred to 
another point, without recollecting that the change 
of the regular winds was approaching. They 
did commence, sweeping in a new direction across 
the plain ; and, within a few days, many thousand 



MALARIA. 



235 



men were disabled or killed. How a better cal- 
culation respecting the periodicEil or regular winds 
would have saved this catastrophe, is sufficiently 
obvious ; while^ even after it had commenced, it 
appears to have been forgotten that this fine 
army might have found shelter from the disease, 
by the mere transference of the camp to a spot 
beneath a neighbouring hill, and without surren- 
dering the military advantages of the position. 
If this, comparatively trifling catastrophe, inju- 
rious to the service as it really was, might, as 
the result of inattention or ignorance, have been 
avoided, it is not possible to reflect, without deep 
regret, that it ought not to have happened, and 
not easy to avoid some warmth in endeavouring to 
show how such evils may be in future prevented. 

To proceed to some cases of a different na- 
ture, the same neglect is found on a smaller 
scale, in the choice of situations for dwelling 
houses ; and if, to the term neglect I were to add 
obstinacy, it would be but a truth : the obstinacy 
of ignorance which cannot learn, or of conceit 
that will not. It is sufficient if I here apply this 
remark to our own ccantry ; because, although I 
could illustrate it by abundant instances, every- 
where, it is England that chiefly concerns an 
English writer writing to his countrymen. What 



236 PROPAGATION OF 

I formerly remarked respecting unsuspected 
sources of Malaria is here applicable to houses, 
and even to houses on the highest scale of opu- 
lence, in numerous places ; while, if ignorance 
has here been a valid excuse, it ought not to he 
such any longer. Nothing surely can be more 
fundamentally necessary respecting the choice of 
a site than that it should be salubrious, or at least 
free from absolute causes of disease, whether as 
a question of happiness or-one of economy, since 
it involves both. But as it is unnecessary to 
dwell on this subject, I shall pass on to another 
cause intimately connected with that which I 
have been discussing, as being a modification of 
proximity. 

The cause to which I allude may be called 
condensation ; and if it has not been well studied 
or described, it is one which can be borne out by 
facts, as it might be anticipated to exist in certain 
circumstances. Or, it is easy to suppose, that 
while the production of Malaria is gradual and 
constant, it must accumulate, unless decomposed 
by chemical actions or dissipated by the winds ; 
while, from the distances to which it is frequently 
carried, we have no reason to suppose that it is 
often or easily decomposed in the common at- 
mosphere. Thus might wc anticipate that a 



MALARIA. 



237 



marsh confined within the walls of a forest, as in 
the pine swamps of America, or the marshy 
ground of a jungle, or even our own moist 
woods, should accumulate Malaria in unusual 
(juantity, and therefore in unusual virulence ; and 
this seems to be established by the most ample 
experience in numerous places. Tims also might 
it be supposed that a similar soil, inclosed within 
high hills, or occupying a valley little susceptible 
of ventilation, should be peculiarly insalubrious ; 
and this is proved by experience, though, from 
deficiences in the philosophy of Malaria, the cause 
has been often overlooked where the effect was 
known : producing some of the usual imaginary 
mysteries as to this poison. 

If in the former way, we can perhaps explain 
the peculiar virulence of jungles and pine swamps, 
and even of woods, everywhere, thus also we can 
probably account for the activity of Malaria in 
many well known parts of France, Germany, 
Spain, and Italy, where its diseases prevail with 
peculiar activity and virulence ; while the con- 
densation, arising from want of ventilation, is 
often the result of a screen or enclosure of trees, 
if sometimes also dependent on the form of a 
valley. In the former case, the remedy is pointed 
out; while, fortunately, it is a practicable one. 



238 



PROPAGATION OF 



because of that power over trees which is denied 
us in ahnost every other case of the imprisonment 
of Malaria. To detail the means, is unnecessary. 
The object is, ventilation ; and circumstances 
must determine how this is most easily and ef- 
fectually to be obtained. And, on this ground, 
we may see why it is, partly, that the clearing of 
new countries often exterminates or diminishes 
the diseases of Malaria, though there are cases, 
as I have already shown_, where this is the very 
cause of its production. It is not only that the 
soil is dried by exposure to the sun, that a formal 
drainage is established, or that the cultivation of 
innoxious plants succeeds to that of an injurious 
vegetation, but that the poison which was for- 
merly concentrated, is diluted or dispersed by the 
winds. How nearly this general rule may be 
applied to our own country residences, where 
uniting stagnant or still waters to the confinement 
of a woody lawn, it is quite superfluous to say. 
Those who cannot profit by general principles, 
but who must, at every minute, have the applica- 
tion made for them, are not of a capacity to profit 
by any thing. 

If our information about Acapulco is suflici- 
ently precise, it is an instance of the imprison- 
ment of Malaria by hills ; since it produces all 



MALARIA. 239 

the consequent diseases, while it is the valley that 
can scarcely be ventilated. And if I am at a loss 
for other remote instances of this case, from the 
difficulty of discovering philosophical truth 
among the herd of travellers, St. Lucie seems to 
offer an example of a similar nature, as do many 
of the vallies, somewhat unsuspectedly, in the 
higher parts of Caucasus, by the testimony of 
Klaproth. That Italy and Greece abound in 
such cases as this, renders it unnecessary to spe- 
cify the localities : while many of the ill venti- 
lated vallies of Switzerland produce striking ex- 
amples of the same nature, noted by travellers 
of even the most superficial observation. 

Having said all that appears necessary on the 
condensation of Malaria, I must proceed to in- 
quire respecting its migration or dispersion ; an 
intricate, and often an apparently mysterious 
subject. In this case, we are compelled to resort 
much more to facts, than to theoretical reason- 
ings respecting what ought to be, because of our 
ignorance respecting the motions of the atmos- 
phere and the laws by which they are governed. 
It is true indeed, that, in a popular sense, we know 
whether the wind blows from the east or the 
west; but, regulating ourselves by horizontal 



240 



PROPAGATION OF 



vanes^ and by the movements of vessels on a si- 
milar plane^ we have formed the inveterate habit 
of concluding that every wind must be horizon- 
tal, and that it must move in a straight line. 
Facts which it would be out of place to enume- 
rate here, prove, not only that all this is fanciful 
or hypothetical, but that while the currents of 
the atmosphere are irregular and intricate in the 
greatest degree, they, further, scarcely in any in- 
stance obey the common law of rarefaction or 
unequal density by which they are supposed to 
be produced and regulated. 

If we cannot therefore explain how a current 
of Malaria may be directed or limited, no motion 
can occur in one, so unexpected or unreasonable, 
as not to find its solution in the capricious and 
intricate currents of the atmosphere. If currents 
move vertically upwards, so may Malaria ; if in 
the reverse vertical, the Malaria may descend ; 
while both these are facts ascertained. If its 
course is curvilinear, there are curvilinear winds 
enough to justify it ; and thus of almost every 
caprice, in its propagation from this cause, which 
can be imagined. 

To proceed to cases or facts, since to these we 
must come ; although, among those to be enu- 



MALARIA. 



241 



merated, there are many which must depend on 
other causes than merely intricate currents in the 
atmosphere, whatever difficulty there may be in 
explaining them. 

The most common case requiring explanation, 
and which, if not to be explained in this manner, 
must remain at present without a solution, is that 
where a spot of marshy ground produces disease 
at some distance, even more remarkably than 
near at hand, or than in its very inhabitants, or 
where, as sometimes happens, these escape alto- 
gether. It is a case of some importance, as ex- 
tending the degree and range of insecurity, and 
consequently, as calling for precautions that might 
not have been suspected to be necessary. 

Numerous instances of this nature have been 
pointed out by different writers, but a few will 
serve to establish the fact : while, however desi- 
rable it might be to notice all those which have 
been ascertained, at least in our own country, 
since this is one of the insidious cases as little 
suspected as it is generally disbelieved, such an 
enumeration implies a length of detail which must 
be left to a geography of the Malaria of England. 

In Italy, it has been ascertained that the poi- 
sonous exhalations of the Lake Agnano reach as 
far as the convent of Camaldoh, situated on a 

R 



242 



PROPAGATION OF 



high hill at the distance of three miles : this in- 
stance further proving that, thus far at least, 
Malaria can be conveyed by the winds. In 
France, at Neuville les Dames, above Chatillon 
on the Indre^ and at St. Paul near Villars, both 
situated on high grounds, there are found as 
many or more fevers than in the marshes beneath 
where the Malaria is produced, and the same is 
generally true all through Bresse in the Lyonnais. 
Thus also the plain of Trappes near Versailles 
is affected by the marshes of St. Cyr, though 
considerably elevated above them. 

I am also informed that a case of this nature 
occurs in Malta, of a very marked nature ; the 
Malaria which is produced on the beach beneath 
a cliffy producing no effect on the spot itself, while 
it affects, even to occasional abandonment, the 
village situated above. Many more similar in- 
stances might be collected ; but I must be con- 
tent with adding a few from our own country 
coming under my own observation, and suffici- 
ently well known to be easily verified. 

At Weymouth, where the back-water, as it is 
called^ produces intermittcnts, and also autumnal 
fevers, commonly mistaken for typhus, these dis- 
eases scarcely affect the immediate inhabitants of 
its vicinity, but are found to range along the high 



MALARIA. 



243 



grounds above ; and the same, in Cornwall, is 
true of the vicinity of St. Austle, receiving its 
Malaria from the marshes of St. Blaisey. If I 
am not misinformed, it is equally true of the 
marsh of Marazion in the same county. 

The marshes about Erith in Kent, also, are 
less injurious to the inhabitants of the lower 
grounds near them than might be expected ; 
while their effect on the houses which are situated 
high on the hill above, is such as, at different 
times, to have been very severely felt by the in- 
habitants. The same is true of Northfleet, if 
my information is correct ; or, the fact as stated 
is, that at some distance, on the high ridge so 
well known, agues are more prevalent than below 
and near the point of the production of the Ma- 
laria. If this is not to be explained by the flow 
of a current, so directed as to escape the low 
grounds beneath these cliffs and declivities, while 
it ranges across the hills in contact, I have no 
solution to offer. I suspect that a similar caprice 
occurs between the low grounds about the river 
Lee and the higher lands that bound its valley ; 
but am not sufficiently certain of the purity of 
the facts to do more than point it out as a subject 
for inquiry ; as I must also leave to others to 
apply this rule, such as it here appears, to what- 

11 2 



244 



PROPAGATION OF 



ever difficulties of a similar nature they may 
chance to discover. 

But 1 will add one statement, extracted from 
Captain Smyth's valuable statistical table of Si- 
cily, because it appears to generalize the whole 
of these facts ; leading to the conclusion, that, 
nearly in an equal number of cases, the higher 
grounds suffer as much as the lower ; the locally 
healthy as those which are the very seats of the 
Malaria. In this document, out of seventy-six 
unhealthy towns and villages enumerated, there 
are thirty-five situated on hills or declivities ; 
while, from his personal information, I may add 
that many of them are at considerable distances 
from the tracts which produce the disease. And 
I may add one remark as to the theory of this 
propagation, derived from a writer on the climate 
of Italy. It is, that the southern winds in that 
country, propagate along the hills, upwards, that 
Malaria which the northern or mountain ones do 
not ; such winds, independently of their superior 
power in producing the pernicious exhalations, 
tending, from their temperature, to ascend the 
acclivities, while the colder winds, as is easily 
understood, have the opposite inclination. 

I have nothing more to add admitting of any 
similar simplicity of explanation; but we can 



MALARIA. 



24o 



now see how we may attempt to account for the 
particular transference of Malaria in certain di- 
rections^ by attending to the actual direction or 
the probable currents of the winds that pass their 
generating spots. And while we thus explain 
many apparent anomalies^ so we can discover re- 
medies for some particular cases^ and further, 
account for certain vacillations in the apparent 
production, though actually in the effect of Ma- 
laria, from changes not depending on season or on 
the other causes already or hereafter to be enu- 
merated. 

If I just noticed the case of Acapulco, as a 
probable one of the condensation of Malaria, 
while, doubtless, many decided ones could be 
found in Italy, though I have not been fortunate 
enough to discover such in the authors whom I 
have consulted, it is not difficult to find examples 
of the effect of vallies in conducting and direct- 
ing the Malaria. And whatever difficulty there 
may be in explaining the exact cause by which 
it is conducted to a spot distant from its origin, 
and in some determinate direction, in cases such 
as that of Northfleet, where it must ascend 
through an unconfined air to traverse the sum- 
mits of open ridges or hills, there is no difficulty 
in comprehending how it may be conveyed to a 



246 PROPAGATION OF 

distance through prolonged vaUies ; since, in such 
cases, it does but follow the course of the narrow 
stream of wind in which it exists. Thus it would 
be easy to conceive, before experience, that if the 
plains about Fort William in Scotland could 
produce a Malaria, that this valley was situated 
in Senegal for example, a southerly or westerly 
wind might, and probably would, carry it on to 
Inverness, or, reversing the marsh, in the reverse 
direction ; and from experience this is ascertained 
to occur in similar situations in many places. 
Of these, one example may suffice, and it is from 
Ceylon. If that valley has a name, it has escaped 
me, though the fact has not ; and this is, that 
whenever the sea wind blows in such a direction 
as to cross the swamps on the shore and enter 
the valley, it conducts it many miles inland, so 
as to produce the fever Avhere at all other times 
it is unknown ; and with such decision and 
promptitude as to have attracted, long since, the 
attention even of the natives, not likely to be 
extremely observant on such subjects. 

But in Italy, analogous remarks, if under dif- 
ferent modifications, are almost universal. Among 
other things, it is a leading observation that, on 
the southern shores, the wider the mouth of the 
valley opens to the sea, or to the influence of the 



MALARIA. 



247 



south winds, and the less deeply it penetrates the 
country among the mountains, it is the more un- 
healthy ; as, under this form, it cannot receive 
those northern or tramontane winds by which it 
would be swept, while, reversely, the southern 
breeze is checked and accumulated in its progress 
inwards, condensing or retaining the pernicious 
vapours which its heat also tends to generate 
more especially. In Sicily, and also in Greece, 
it is no less observed, and very universally, that 
vallies not only confine but conduct the Malaria; 
this being a very conspicuous fact in the latter 
country, in many narrow vallies which open to 
the sea and thus conduct the breeze inland, 
through pernicious tracts, to places not essentially 
unhealthy. Similar modifications of ground pro- 
ductive of the same results, are also pointed out 
in Italy, as elsewhere ; but I need not prolong 
remarks, of which the chief value is, that, in the 
latter cases at least, they indicate the obvious re- 
medy, often of very easy application : that being 
to plant screens of trees across such vallies, so as 
to intercept the current ; while I need scarcely 
repeat that a similar remedy, applicable to the 
first cases, is precisely that which the Romans 
seem to have employed in ancient times on the 
shores of Latium. 



248 



PROPAGATION OF 



The case of trees presents one of much more 
intricacy, and also of far greater importance. It 
involves, as has already been indicated, the pro- 
duction, or otherwise, of Malaria, as well as its 
condensation and its propagation in various ways ; 
while it is also one of the most important cases 
as far as soils or localities are concerned, since, 
whether for good or evil, it is that which is the 
most frequently, sometimes indeed almost com- 
pletely in our power. 

For example, since the creation of an obstacle 
to the winds, as in the planting or natural growth 
of woods, may either increase the eifects of a 
Malaria by confining it, or remove or diminish 
them by cutting off a communication or diverting 
a former course, so may the destruction of the ob- 
stacle which a forest interposes to a particular cur- 
rent of air, introduce a Malaria to some particular 
spot where it was before unknown ; as different 
and opposite changes of this nature may produce 
those revolutions, for increase or abatement^ pro- 
duction or disappearance, of disease, which have 
so often been represented as of a mysterious na- 
ture ; such ignorance also having occasionally 
been made rather a matter of boast than shame, 
as if it was the ignorance of all respecting a dif- 
ficult subject, instead of an unpardonable want 
of discernment on the part of the individual. 



MALARIA. 



249 



Not to recur to what relates to the actual 
production of Malaria from the cutting down 
of forests and the breaking up or exposure of 
such land, nor to the reverse case, where the 
planting of a wood becomes a remedy, by its ab- 
sorbing the moisture of a soil or by screening it 
from the sun, nor to repeat what has been said 
on the condensation or confinement of this poi- 
son by trees or forests, the district of Bresse in 
the Lyonnais, among many more in France and 
some few in Italy, offers, at present, examples, 
not only of such condensation and its effects, 
but of both the opposing effects as these relate to 
propagation; namely, of their power in prevent- 
ing its access, as screens, and in checking its pro- 
gress so as to accumulate it in a place which it 
would otherwise have passed over ; and further, 
of directing it in lines which it would not else 
have followed, and to points which it would not 
have invaded. To limit myself to a few well 
known cases from Italy ; a convent at St. Ste- 
phano became unhealthy in consequence of cut- 
ting down some trees ; and the extirpation of a 
wood brought on severe fevers at Velletri during 
a space of three years, as also happened at Campo 
Saline in the Pontine marshes. 

It would not be difficult to quote instances in 



250 



PROPAGATION OF 



support of this general proposition and these 
s&veral effects, from the histories of our coloni- 
zation also, and from those of our permanent 
campaigns ; but while it would also be abun- 
dantly easy for me to render almost the whole 
of this portion of the work an amusing and 
somewhat interesting collection of facts, rather 
than an abstraction from these for the purpose of 
establishing certain general principles, two evil 
consequences would follow ; that of injuriously 
increasing the bulk of such an essay as is de- 
signed to be popular, should that prove its good 
fortune, and that of diverting the attention of su- 
perficial or ignorant readers from what is import- 
ant to what is entertaining. Philosophical minds 
may indeed keep their eye on the beacon which 
guides them through such a wilderness ; but it is 
always the fate of others, in such cases, to lose 
sight of the true path while they pursue the 
flowers and butterflies which are thrown in 
their way. 

And, not to accumulate examples with which 
pages might be filled on the whole of this inte- 
resting part of the question under review, it 
ought now to be superfluous, and would as- 
suredly be tedious, to point out the nature of the 
remedial processes in any cases of this kind where 



MALARIA. 



251 



the fault may be suspected to arise from trees, 
under any mode^ or to be capable of extirpation 
by the management of forests. It is evident that 
nothing but an accurate study of the localities, 
and also of the previous history of such tracts, 
can point out the necessary steps as to any one 
place ; and that this is a case repairing intimate 
knowledge of the subject in general^ together with 
that eye for ground and general philosophical 
discernment which belongs to the practised and 
philosophical engineer. The general principles 
are, now, not difficult of apprehension ; but their 
application must be trusted to those who are ca- 
pable of applying them to particulars. 

But it will not be useless, while it may be in- 
teresting, to quote one noted instance, in which 
it appears that the removal of trees has actually 
produced very injurious consequences ; and where 
the case is that of Rome, the space which it may 
occupy will be pardoned. I say, appears, because 
I find by experience that it is almost impossible 
to rely implicitly on any testimony, since an as- 
sertion on one side is not uncommonly counter- 
acted by some contradiction on another. Under 
this reservation, I shall immediately show, what 
indeed is far too well-known a fact, that the in- 
fluence of Malaria through Rome has been gra- 



252 



PROPAGATION OF 



dually augmenting, and that it may be traced in 
a gradual progress from a particular point, or 
perhaps now, from more. 

Not to commence from what I have had occa- 
sion to mention elsewhere respecting Jthe planta- 
tions or groves which, in the times of antiquity, 
were dispersed through the Roman territory, 
most evidently the result of design on this very 
subject, and which, very particularly, appear to 
have been one great cause of the superior salubrity 
of the Pontine marshes, Lancisi remarks that in 
later times, there was extirpated near Rome,aforest 
to the southward, reaching from the heights of 
Frascati and Albano to the Tiber, and protecting 
it from the Malaria so abundantly generated in 
that quarter by these marshes. Thus, says he, 
was destruction first let in upon the Campagna : 
but it is since that date that a similar proceeding 
seems to have opened Rome itself in another 
quarter to the Malaria of this immediate tract of 
pernicious land. 

If my information at least is correct, there was 
formerly, at this point, or in a situation inter- 
posed between the Campagna and the Porta del 
Popolo, a wood, cutting off the communication 
through the north-east winds ; and it is since the 
destruction of this, that the new progress of this 



MALARIA. 



pest, so remarkable, has been noticed. If this 
fact should be established^ or has been truly re- 
presented, it may prove a valuable one ; as the 
Papal government will thus acquire a remedy, as 
far as this point at least is concerned, which it 
has long vainly sought in drainage, and in other 
probable, but ineffectual improvements ; though 
it is difficult to comprehend, if this be true, why 
it has not been put in force long ago. 

But a writer can do no more than seek for the 
best evidence in his reach, and balance it by other 
testimonies ; and therefore I may proceed to say, 
that as far as I can trust to information on a sub- 
ject which I have had no opportunity of examin- 
ing, this progress of the Malaria through Rome 
appears to be determinate, if slow ; spreading as 
it were, from a fixed point, and making, in every 
year, a further step, so as gradually to drive the 
inhabitants before it, as far at least as these are 
opulent, and able to quit their unhealthy habita- 
tions ; since not only does poverty check the mi- 
gration of the lower classes, but, from the causes 
hereafter to be stated, their crowded streets are 
far less affected by this poison than the dwellings 
of the rich. 

According to these reports, it appears to enter 
at the Porta del Popolo, or from the north- 



254 



PROPAGATION OF 



eastward ; while it may be suspected here, that 
as far as this occurrence is new, as it is asserted 
to be, the immediate cause must be sought in the 
extirpation of the mass of wood just mentioned, 
which formerly sheltered this quarter of the city 
from that wind which crossed the pestiferous 
plain. 

From this point it is said now to reach to a 
certain distance along the Corso, the banks of 
the Tiber, and the west side of the Pincian hill ; 
continuing its course along the base of that ele- 
vation, by the church of the Trinita del Monte, 
and thus round the foot of the Quirinal and Vi- 
minal hills, to the church of Santa Maria mag- 
giore. In its further progress it reaches the 
church of San Pietro in Vincoli, diverging to- 
wards the Campo Vaccino, and proceeding on- 
w^ards to the eastward of the Colosseum. It is 
also further said to have begun to enter, but at a 
later date, by the quarter of the Porta maggiore 
and that of San Giovanni ; occupying at present, 
to a severe degree, the district of St. John La- 
teran, and holding its course over the Coelian 
hill towards the church of St. Gregory, where it 
spreads to the eastward of the Palatine, towards 
the ancient seat of the great Velabrum and the 
river. 



MALARIA. 



255 



To omit minuter and further details^ I may 
also addj that by reports more recent than those 
from which the preceding sketch was drawn, its 
progress is by no means finished ; and that every 
year adds something to the extent of its course 
and influence, and not a little to the alarm of the 
inhabitants ; since, should it proceed for many 
more years in the same accelerating ratio, Rome, 
the eternal city, may perhaps at length be aban- 
doned, and the modern Babylon as it has been 
named, become, like Babylon the great, a desert 
of ruins. 

In what respect this state of things may de- 
pend on an increased production of Malaria in 
the surrounding Campagna, or whether, imder 
other winds, any portion of this evil arises from 
an increased insalubrity of the Pontine marshes 
or the southern lands in general, I can discover 
no facts from travellers or in writers to enable 
me to form a judgment ; nor, at present, any 
other local cause but that just named, and which 
relates to a greater facility as to the progress, not 
the production, of this destructive atmosphere. 
But as far as regards that slowness of pace by 
which it creeps along the streets of Rome, while 
it is probable that the direction is governed by 
that to which the currents of the winds are deter - 



256 



propagation: of 



mined, it is equally probable that the gradual 
gain which it makes on one point after another, 
is further regulated, and, in reality, caused, by 
the diminution of the population, and by the very 
fact that the people retire before it. I shall soon 
show how the poison of Malaria is destroyed by 
the circumstances which attend a crowded street ; 
and while in this diminishing city, house after 
house is abandoned, it is plain that new means 
are afforded to it for another step and a further 
progress ; the general fact being further con- 
firmed by its following those lines and attacking 
those places, especially, which are most denuded 
of inhabitants. Hence it is a misplaced surprise 
which wonders why the Villa Borghese, or other 
elevated situations exposed to a free air, should 
be almost uninhabitable ; since it is this very 
freedom of the air which is the source of all 
the evil. 

One conclusion of much importance follows 
from this view, if it be the true explanation 
which I conceive it to be : and it relates to futu- 
rity as that may be connected with the political 
prosperity of Rome. If it is true that ancient 
Rome suffered less from Malaria than the modern 
city has generally done and than the present one 
does, and if the surrounding lands were not less 



MALARIA. 



257 



poisonous then than they are at present, or indeed 
under any view of their comparative condition, 
the very fact of a more dense population in for- 
mer times may explain the difference, as I have 
here suggested, and shall more fully demonstrate 
shortly. Thus, all external causes being the 
same, or even should they now be different, the 
increasing effect of this pestilence must still go 
on to increase, in an accelerating ratio with 
the commercial or political feebleness of the state, 
and its consequent diminution of industry and 
population : and very especially, as to the upper 
classes, with that increase of poverty which has 
led them to abandon their expensive palaces, and 
thus, from a still wider influence of depopulation 
around those, which I need not explain, to give 
freer admission to that plague, which, once estab- 
lished, can never be encountered or braved again. 
And if it be true, as is said, that the Malaria has 
now reached the Vatican, it is easy to see that 
the alarm which may desert it in consequence, 
will soon render a lasting desertion inevitable. 

Thus will that process of degradation which 
attends all states placed in the circumstances in 
which Rome now stands, operate with increased 
and accelerated energy, by the aid of this ally, 
disease; and should the progress of this not be 

s 



258 



PROPAGATION OF 



suspended, should it proceed as it has lately done, 
depopulation itself will proceed in a ratio which 
mathematicians would almost call geometrical, 
and hasten with rapid steps, a catastrophe in 
which the whole civilized world will partake with 
that city which is almost the common property 
of learning, art, and science, wherever existing. 

As I can preserve little order in what follows, I 
may now point out some facts of a singular kind, 
which, if they belong to the propagation of Ma- 
laria, are also, in some cases, connected perhaps 
with restraint and condensation, and further pos- 
sibly with diversion ; while the last must be 
referred to that obscure circumstance, the attach- 
ment of this substance to solids, which was for- 
merly mentioned. 

In Rome, it is pointed out, in more places than 
one, that the Malaria, which must there be 
transported, not generated, will occupy, even 
with some permanence, and in some instances 
also, perennially, one side of a garden or a street, 
while the opposite one remains exempt. If, in 
some cases, this is connected with that singular 
propagation just described, it is an explanation 
that will not solve every case of the difficulty. 
They who know Rome, and its tales on that sub- 
ject, will remember the opposed churches where 



MALARIA. 



259 



the porter or janitor on the one side, long and 
invariably suffering from fever, was cured by the 
mere transference of his office to the opposite 
side of the same street ; and where, at the same 
time, the duty had been always as safe as it was 
invariably dangerous or destructive on the other. 
This is a circumstance indeed of very frequent 
occurrence in various parts of Italy, but I will 
only quote one more instance from that country, 
out of many, because it is well known to many 
officers then serving with our army in Sicily. 
The village, the name of which has escaped me, 
unless that be Faro, was situated above the Faro 
of Messina ; and while one side of the street was 
in the highest degree pestiferous, producing mor- 
tal fevers among the troops, the opposed one 
was entirely exempt. 

Whatever apparent mystery there may be in 
these occurrences, and though perhaps the same 
explanation will not apply to every case, there are 
some common facts in meteorology which will 
probably help to explain some of the instances in 
question. It is probable, as I have shewn in 
another place, that the matter of Malaria is often 
connected with vapour, or mist ; conducted by it, 
and probably defined, as to its place and extent, 
by this, its vehicle. Now as, in the case of dews, 



260 



rROPAGATlO^J OF 



or more particularly in that of hoar frosts^ we often 
find this occupying a certain extent, both super- 
ficially and as to level, reaching for example to 
a particular hedge in some valley, and then 
ceasing by a most definite and sudden line, while 
also terminating at a particular altitude on the 
trunks or branches of trees, as if suddenly cut ofi^ 
it is not difficult to imagine how a Malaria thus 
united, might be as defined and as local as it is 
actually found to be in these singular cases. Of 
causes depending on the direction of winds, it is 
not also difficult to imagine more than one modi- 
fication : since the poisonous spot might lie in its 
peculiar current, or, otherwise, be a place shelter- 
ing a substance which, as I shall presently shew, 
seems occasionally to subside and rest, as if it 
possessed a specific gravity greater than that of 
the surrounding atmosphere. 

A domestic instance of the same nature is per- 
haps even more worthy of notice, from the great 
extent of range through which this remarkable 
fact occurs, no less than from the accuracy with 
which the limits of the Malaria are defined ; 
while this case is even the more remarkable, as 
being an example of transportation and not of 
production. For the truth of the fact itself I have 
the testimony of the country at large, as well as 



MALARIA. 



261 



that of some individuals of accurate habits ; while 
whoever is inclhied to doubt, may find the^ means 
of investigating it without difficulty. 

This is the high road between Chatham and 
Feversham, involving an extent of about twenty 
miles ; and it is here remarked by the inha])itants, 
that in every village and town, including also the 
detached houses, and comprising, from Chatham, 
Raynham, Newington, Sittingbourne, Bapchild, 
and Boughton, the ague occurs, on the left hand 
side of the road, generally, and is unknown on 
the right side ; though the breadth of the road 
itself forms the only hue of separation. If I were 
to repeat, in addition, some special facts, believed 
and related by the inhabitants of some of these 
places^ and at Sittingbourne among others, this 
separation is even more wonderfully and mysteri- 
ously precise than the general fact as thus stated 
would prove it to be. I need only add, that the 
lands producing this Malaria are situated gene- 
rally at about a mile distant, on the left hand, 
being as well known as the road itself. 

I do not pretend to explain the almost marvel- 
lous singularity of this particular instance ; while 
it would, in reality, be far more convenient to dis- 
believe it, as is the not unusual practice of philo- 
phcrs in similar cases. But I cannot doubt what 



262 



PROPAGATION OF 



SO many agree in asserting ; while^ as in not a 
few other difficult cases of unexplained facts, it is 
not easy to comprehend the nature of the imagi- 
nation which could invent such a tale, nor the 
courage which should persevere in asserting an 
untruth so easily detected. And to disbelieve, 
merely because we cannot explain, is more con- 
venient to ignorance and vanity, than it is either 
philosophical or modest; as it is the not un- 
common proof of both : while I presume I need 
not say, that philosophy is as little_ likely here- 
after to profit by sceptics of this nature, as it has 
hitherto done. Modern research has proved that 
many things, once incredible, are true ; since, 
even in science, the " vrai" is not always the 
" vraisemblable" : but such discoveries have not 
been made by those w^hose vanity rejected as false 
what they did not understand: and never will. 
That guns which had been reposing for a century 
at the bottom of a deep sea, were red hot when 
brought up to the light of day, was as little be- 
lieved and as much ridiculed, as the limitations of 
the Malaria in this case will probably be by the 
sceptics in question : yet the investigations of 
the same credulous person proved its truth, and 
added a new and interesting fact to chemical 
science. 



MALARIA. 



263 



If this remarkable instance does not seem to 
be amenable to any of the solutions which I have 
just suggested, if it cannot be brought under any 
rule dependent on the direction of winds or aught 
else, since the boundary line is so vague a limit, 
and so variable as regards any causes which we 
might imagine possible ones, it is not so widely 
removed from the case of Faro, and from some of 
those occurring in Rome, as to be an absolutely 
solitary difficulty. Under some laws, it must be : 
and, as far as these cases accord, those laws must 
be general ones, while they must be either chemi- 
cal, or meteorologically mechanical. We are in 
ignorance ; that is all : but at some future day, 
they will be known ; though not till the entire 
subject has been studied on those philosophical 
principles which have never yet been applied to it. 

I must yet add one remark before pro- 
ceeding to the next class of analogous pheno- 
mena ; because it really seems to be demanded, 
not in this particular case only, but with respect 
to the whole subject very widely. Of these last 
facts,the partial course, limitation, and definition 
of Malaria, there can be no possible doubt ; so 
numerous are the cases, every where, and so often 
have they been not merely described, but proved 
by the most ample experience. Yet there are 



264 



PROPAGATION OF 



none which have met with more ridicule, not to 
say opposition merely^ in our own country, by 
those who affect to treat with doubt or contempt 
the whole of this subject ; among whom, I grieve 
to think that there should be any in the profes- 
sion of physic. Claims to superiority, if this be 
one, are better proved by knowledge than by the 
w ant of it : and opinions of this nature, worthless 
at all times, are much misapplied where human 
life, as well as suffering, is so deeply concerned. 
It will be abundant time to controvert what is 
erroneous, when the disorders which have been 
so long misunderstood shall be better distin- 
guished, and when we shall have learned to pre- 
vent them by removing their causes. 

The caprices of Malaria with regard to level, 
are often among those the least easily explained : 
though in certain cases, the solution is sufficiently 
obvious. .There appeared no great difficulty, as 
long as it seemed an invariable rule in Italy, 
where this extreme partiality of transmission or 
existence was first remarked, that the Malaria lay 
near the ground, and was transmitted in the direc- 
tion of a stratum near its level, in preference to a 
higher one. Thus it was found safe to sleep in 
the second or upper story of a house, while the 
fever seized on those who lay below ; and thence 



MALARIA. 



265 



certain well-known practices also in that country, 
relating to the closing and opening of windows. 
The fact indeed is sufficiently common, else- 
where : and if it required confirmation. Dr. Hun- 
ter will inform us, that in the Spanish town bar- 
racks in Jamaica, where the barrack consisted of 
two floors, three cases of fever occurred in the 
lower story for one in the upper. 

The solution here seems easy, and perhaps it is 
also the true one. It is, that the Malaria is espe- 
cially united with that transferable substance 
which forms the foggy stratum ; or that the low- 
est portion of the atmosphere in the act of depo- 
siting water, is its vehicle and its residence. And 
this solution, while it agrees with the popular 
opinion respecting low mists, as it does with a 
great variety of facts relating to the conduct of 
Malaria, noted on various occasions throughout 
this essay, is apparently connected also with one 
particular fact which will soon come under re- 
view. The only -apparent difficulty lies in an 
analogous, but somewhat jarring circumstance 
which has come under my notice, by means of 
information which, being unconnected with any 
theory or any knowledge of this circumstance, or 
of the subject in general, being in fact a mere po- 
puhir observation from experience, can scarcely 



266 



PROPAGATION OF 



fail to be correct. This is^ that on the coast of 
Norfolk, in some places where Malaria prevails, 
it selects preferably the second or upper story, 
while the lower one as invariably escapes. Both 
facts may however be equally explicable on the 
general principles already examined ; as, in the 
last case, the direction may be that of a local 
current of air, determined by circumstances which 
would probably be discovered on inspection. In 
any view, these different facts are worth detailing, 
on account of their practical utility ; as leading to 
precautions which might otherwise be overlooked. 

Whether the specific gravity of the poisonous 
gas itself which constitutes Malaria, or that of 
the air which, as a peculiar modification of the 
atmosphere, forms its most convenient vehicle or 
repository, is connected with these phenomena, 
is a question yet to be investigated. But there 
are other facts which seem to prove that it can 
be lodged and retained, even where it has not 
been produced; though whether from possessing 
a greater weight than that of the surrounding at- 
mosphere, or because sheltered from that move- 
ment of circulation which is unceasing, in all 
open places, even where there is no sensible wind, 
is the point to be examined. To name a striking 
ease of this nature, I may refer to Valetta, al- 



MALARIA. 



267 



luded to on a former occasion, on account of the 
consequences which almost invariably occurred 
in the Floriana guard, while other parts were lit- 
tle affected, or retained their health. Here, the 
ditch was very deep and narrow, but so perfectly 
dry that it could not be suspected of producing 
the Malaria to which the effects in question were 
owing. Nor could this be explained, except by 
supposing that it lodged and protected from dis- 
sipation, a current of noxious air, produced from 
that salt marsh which seems to be the source of 
Malaria in Valetta, and which the sea breeze di- 
rected on to this spot. Nor is this explanation im- 
probable, either for this case or other similar ones, 
when we know that carbonic acid, as well as 
watery vapour, or a moist atmosphere, can thus 
remain at rest on the ground, or in any other 
place where it is protected from the general cir- 
culation of the atmosphere, for a great length of 
time. 

That I may keep the chemical question which 
relates to the propagation of Malaria by itself, I 
shall here notice the facts that bear on its attach- 
ment to solid substances. 

In the Campagna of Rome, it is remarked that 
if the labourers cut down certain plants, (a bushy 
thistle, chiefly, of which the botanical character 



268 PROPAGATION OF 



has escaped me^) a fever^ that would otherwise 
not have occurred^ is the consequence. The Ma- 
laria seems, or is thought, to be entangled within 
it and to be let loose by this disturbance. That 
there is any analogous fact ascertained in our own 
country or elsewhere, I know not ; but if it be 
the truth which is asserted, it is probable that the 
cutting down of reeds in our own marshes may 
be the incurring of a hazard that might not be 
encountered on merely passing through such 
lands. In a subject on which we are yet so im- 
perfectly informed, it is at least deserving of fur- 
ther attention and inquiry, and therefore it is 
worth recording. 

Further, it is a common remark in many parts 
of Italy, that as long as the labourers are in the 
erect posture, they incur little danger, but that 
the fever attacks those who sit down or lie on 
the ground, as if the poisonous matter extended 
to but a small altitude above it. Whether, in 
this case, the cause be, as in the former, an at- 
tachment of the Malaria to the ground itself, or 
to its vegetation, or whether it is that it is a part 
of a ponderous stratum of air lying on the ground, 
as carbonic acid does in the Solfatara, is a ques- 
tion which requires investigation, at least as far 
as philosophy is concerned ; but whatever be the 



MALARIA. 



269 



cause, this also is a fact worth recording, because 
it may be a general, if a neglected one, and may 
exist, with pernicious and overlooked results, in 
our own country. 

In such cases as this, from the far inferior vi- 
rulence of the poison with us, the result might 
be a very slight fever, or at most an ordinary 
one ; while, as such an event would most fre- 
quently occur during the time of harvest, it would 
naturally be attributed to heat or fatigue, or to 
the influence of the sun ; and might thus, under 
peculiar symptoms, as it most unquestionably 
often has, be even considered a phrenitis. These 
false judgments, and their pernicious consequences 
as to the practice, are but problematical examples 
possibly (though I cannot help thinking them 
often real ones) of the mischief arising from ig- 
norance as to this cause of fevers, and from the 
assignment of imaginary ones ; and if I have, in 
the medical portion of this work, noticed the 
palsies produced in the same manner, the proba- 
bility of this being the real cause, is also con- 
firmed by what happens in the pernicious dis- 
tricts of Italy under the same carelessness. If, in 
the Maremma of Tuscany and elsewhere, it is 
generally a dangerous fever which seizes the in- 
cautious labourer, so, very often, is it apoplexy 



270 



PROPAGATION OF 



or palsy ; while, as I have had occasion to remark 
in another place, immediate death is often the 
consequence there of lying doAvn on the ground ; 
the labourers being frequently discovered dead, 
when supposed to be asleep, by the way sides or 
in the fields. 

Unaware of any thing further of any import- 
ance that bears on these cases, I may now inquire 
how far the propagation of Malaria, or its action 
on the body, which cannot here be easily sepa- 
rated from that, depends on chemical ctmditions 
of the atmosphere. This is a question in which 
we have no guides but analogy and detached facts ; 
since, as long as we continue ignorant, both of 
the nature of Malaria and of that of its union 
with the atmosphere, we can derive no aid from 
theoretical views. 

If not rigidly a gaseous matter, it must be such, 
or nearly such, in its union with the air ; and, 
not improbably, the conditions necessary for that 
union, must resemble those which rule bodies 
that enter into a similar combination. If there- 
fore, odoriferous substances be allowed to present 
an analogy, it should be most easily united with 
a moist atmosphere, and most easily diffusible 
through such an one. And further, it seems 
tolerably well proved, that the matters of conta- 



MALARIA. 



271 



gion also are most easily diffused through a simi- 
lar atmosphere, and that, in a dry one, they are 
difficultly propagated, or altogether destroyed. 
And as the analogy here seems more perfect, we 
might conclude that a moist atmosphere was re- 
ally favouriable to this process as it relates to 
Malaria ; or that, in this condition of the air, 
the diseases which it produces are most easily 
propagated. In how far a moist air is favourable 
to the production of the poison, is a question 
difficult to disengage from this one in a practical 
view ; but as it falls under the subject of season 
and climate, it will inevitably recur hereafter. 

In this case, before noticing what may seem to 
confirm the theory, I must interpose a medical 
remark, which, if it is a fact, may aifect some of 
the conclusions on this subject. This is, that the 
body is rendered more susceptible of such dis- 
eases by the influence of a moist atmosphere. 
Thus does physic pronounce ; but it assuredly 
has not been demonstrated. It may possibly be 
so ; but if it cannot be proved by something 
more than the readier appearance of the diseases 
of Malaria, it may be utterly unfounded ; while 
the easier propagation of the poison itself, will 
account for the phenomena, and render that so- 
lution unnecessary. That it has been adopted as 



272 



PROPAGATION OF 



an hypothesis to explain a fact, because a better 
explanation was not at hand, seems probable. 

As to the facts which confirm the opinion that 
Malaria is peculiarly propagated by a moist at- 
mosphere, they are perhaps not very definite, but 
they are numerous and various ; the variety, in 
this case, atoning in some degree for the want of 
a more perfect demonstration from one fact. If, 
among numerous circumstances, there is always 
one steady cause present, it is probable that this 
is the cause sought for. 

Now, it is not only a popular observation that 
Malaria is especially conducted by common fogs, 
but an observation so rooted, as to have led to 
the very universal error among the people, of 
supposing the fog itself to be the very poison and 
the cause of disease. Nor is it merely a popular 
observation ; as a wide experience of a much 
more accurate kind, shows that it is a fact on 
which we may repose without hesitation. If the 
fogs of Holland are proverbial, the truth seems 
to be the same in our own country, in America, 
and elsewhere ; as it appears to be equally true 
of the intertropical climates, where the mists 
and fogs have a character so different ; being 
commonly distinguished by their heat, as our 
own are by their coldness. 



MALARIA. 273 

And as connected with this question^ it cannot 
be irrelevant to remark, that the intermixture of 
Malaria seems to be the real cause of the perni- 
cious nature of fogs ; allowing for some excep- 
tions or modifications arising from the action of 
cold and moisture, or heat and moisture, which 
medical readers will easily supply. If it were 
not so, the same diseases which the pernicious 
fogs of fenny countries produce, should occur in 
elevated or mountainous situations subject to be 
involved in clouds, since the cloud is, in every 
other respect, a fog. If it Avere not so, the fogs 
of dry countries should produce the same diseases 
as those of moist ones, which they do not ; and 
if it 'w^ere not so, the westerly fogs that so often 
arrive in our island from the Atlantic, should ge- 
nerate the diseases of Malaria, like the easterly 
ones arriving from Holland or formed on our 
own fenny coasts, which they are never known 
to do. And to confirm this, it is remarked, that 
while, in Flanders, (in Artois,) it is the south- 
westerly and southerly winds which bring and 
spread disease, in consequence, obviously, of the 
lands which they traverse, as well as of their own 
conducting qualities, it disappears as soon as the 
sea wind from the northern quarters sets in, al- 
though this is accompanied l)y dense and durable 

T 



274 



PROPAGATION OF 



fogs. And the same rule will be found to hold 
good in many parts of the Mediterranean, as 
well as in France, in numerous cases. 

The next fact in support of this view, is ana- 
logous, yet somewhat different ; while it is also a 
popular observation, and not less a matter of 
more accurate medical evidence. In our own 
climate, it relates to the pernicious nature of the 
morning and evening mists formed on low 
grounds ; and, in the hotter climates, I need 
scarcely say that the effect of such mists in gene- 
rating fever, is as notorious as any fact the best 
established upon this subject. And while, in 
these cases, the progress of the sun upwards in 
the morning is the remedy for the morning mists, 
as the day altogether is for those of night, this 
fact also seems to confirm and illustrate the same 
opinion, namely, that the watery or moist atmos- 
phere is the active conductor or repository of the 
Malaria, and that when the former is dissipated, 
the latter is checked in its progress, possibly in- 
deed in its production ; entirely dispersed, or, it 
may even be, destroyed. This also explains the 
no less common error respecting the cause of the 
poisonous effects of dew in hot climates, since 
this is obviously also a case of the propagation, 
possibly also of the production, of Malaria. It 



MALARIA. 



275 



is not the dew itself which is the poison, but the 
fever-generating gas which is united to the watery 
atmosphere whence it is precipitated. 

If this also explains the influence of night, ge- 
nerally, in propagating Malaria or producing its 
diseases, so does that well known fact, in return, 
confirm the general theory in question. How 
truly night, no less than morning and evening, is 
the time of danger from this cause, is too well 
proved by the experience of Italy to need any 
other proof: though everywhere, and in every 
way, it is among the most received and best 
proved of the facts belonging to Malaria and its 
diseases. 

Thus also is it especially remarked, that if a 
hot day is succeeded by a cold and damp night, 
the effects of Malaria are much augmented ; and 
the same analogy holds as to similar changes in 
seasons, or as to incidental ones occurring in any 
manner. Hence if cold and wet weather should 
unexpectedly take place in the midst of a hot 
summer, an augmentation of severity, or a state 
of disease before not in existence, will occur; 
and hence also severe epidemics occur particularly, 
if, to such a hot summer there should succeed a 
cold and rainy autumn ; the production of the 
poison, as I formerly remarked, being apparently 

T 2 



276 



PROPAGATION OF 



augmented in this manner^ while the atmosphere 
is also rendered a better conductor. The general 
philosophy applicable to all these cases^ is, that 
watery vapour, or a moist atmosphere, is the best 
solvent and conductor of Malaria, as a dry one is 
the worst ; while independently of the different 
effects of those two states on vegetation and on 
putrefaction, it is the effect of the sun to evapo- 
rate or disperse, possibly in a great measure to 
decompose, that gaseous matter, which is con- 
densed, and probably very often again precipitated, 
during the evening, together with the vapours 
which had been held in solution in the air. 

It is from the same cause partly, that arise the 
notorious effects of the rainy season in the tro- 
pical climates : the general reasoning being the 
same, while I need not dwell on the particulars 
in these most violent cases ; the more, that I 
have been so often obliged to allude to them for 
different purposes. And if such consequences 
occur even where there are no marshes, it is, ob- 
viously, as I have remarked elsewhere, because 
the very soil becomes virtually a marsh under such 
rains and amid such a vegetation. When physi- 
cians therefore, arguing as Park seems thought- 
lessly to have done, attribute the production of 
fever, or of Malaria, to the rain alone, or to a 



MALARIA. 



277 



moist atmosphere^ attempting further to confirm 
this theory by saying, as Lind has done, that even 
in England, a rainy season will produce remittents 
etnd intermittents, and in the healthiest districts, 
or where Malaria is unknown, it is that they have 
overlooked all the obscurer places and causes 
which it has here been my endeavour to point 
out ; thus throwing a very considerable, and also 
a very dangerous, confusion into this plain 
subject. 

Let me here subjoin one remark as to the 
effect of night, which 1 ought not to reserve ; 
though I am not satisfied of its value and truth, 
seeing that there are contradictions on this sub- 
ject. It is Italian experience however ; and all 
that I can do is to collate it with other Italian 
experience, allowing the reader to strike the 
balance which I cannot. The assertion is, that 
however Malaria should be present in any given 
spot, there is no hazard after nine or ten o'clock 
at night, or that its influence belongs to evening 
rather than to proper night. It is conceived, of 
course, here, that as it is entangled in the morn- 
ing vapour, becoming (hssipated or destroyed as 
the sun approaches the meridian, so Avhen the 
condensation of the evening mists has been 
completed, it is precipitated and rendered inert or 



278 



PROPAGATION OF 



null. All that I can say is, that it is quite pos- 
sible both assertions should be true, in diiFerent 
places and in different seasons ; as it is easy to 
conceive how the meteorological operations con- 
nected with vapour and dew, may vary in their 
duration, or in their relative periods of commence- 
ment and termination. As a question of practice, 
for the convenience of those who may be under 
the necessity of exposing themselves at night, the 
knowledge of these variations in the propagation 
or influence of Malaria may be useful ; though 
they must be ascertained for each place, by trial. 

I had thought that such general remarks, be 
the country Africa or Italy, might have been ap- 
plied by any one to our own cases and our own 
island ; that I might have saved myself the per- 
petual trouble of applying every fact and every 
rule to England, that what I had explained of 
the Malaria of other lands, or of the subject in 
general, would have been sufficient to enable any 
one to make the inferences desired ; or, that if 
an Italian fish-pond, a Flemish ravelin, or a 
Dutch ditch, was pestilential, so might ditches, 
fish ponds, and fortifications be judged pernicious 
among ourselves. Experience has taught me the 
contrary : Malaria is indeed an Italian word ; but 
I know not that Miasma would have served the 



MALARIA. 



279 



purpose better. Let me therefore illustrate, for 
ourselves, this last set of facts. 

It is said, and believed indeed, that the night 
air is unwholesome. True, it is so, but not ne- 
cessarily or not always ; otherwise at least than 
as mere cold may be injurious ; while the effects 
of that, such as they are, are well understood. 
It is thought unwholesome because it is cold, or 
because it is damp : these are the reasons assign- 
ed ; but the philosophy is false or confused, and 
thus the rule of avoidance becomes an inconve- 
nience without being a precaution ; while as an 
inconvenience^ it is for ever broken. It is broken 
also when this air is not damp and not cold, be- 
cause the philosophy is erroneous : and hence 
danger and disease which real knowledge would 
have prevented. No one fears a summer even- 
ing, even a mild summer night, unless indeed he 
shall find or fear a dew. Yet here lies the very 
danger ; in a land of meadows and parks and 
ponds and rivers and woods, a thousand times 
more hazardous than all the nights of all the 
winters that ever were. This is the real night 
air to be feared, even though the grey mist should 
not rise, as it is called, or the dew not fall. To 
take a pleasant evening walk by the banks of the 
river or the lake, to watch the trout rise from the 



280 



PROPAGATION OF 



fish-pond or the canal at the evening flies^ to at- 
tend the milking of the cows in the green mea- 
dow^ to saunter among wet groves till the moon 
riseS;, listening to the nightingale^ these, and more, 
of such rural amusements and delights, are the 
true night air, the Malaria, and the fever. 
Whence else should fevers come ? and do they 
not thus come in Italy and in Africa? Have 
they other causes in Rome or Mantua than here, 
and shall we ever learn to believe that they have 
no other ? The Thames indeed is not the Congo, 
nor can we parallel Ostia or Terracina ; the 
fevers do not slay in three days ; but the disease 
is the same, the poison the saniQ, and the same 
is the cause. 

The remedies, such as they are, for these cases^ 
consisting in avoidance and certain modes of pre- 
vention, are, like the fact itself, so familiar, that 
it is scarcely necessary to enumerate them. The 
basis of all is, avoidance simply, and, above all, 
to avoid sleep under such exposure ; as the effect 
of this state of the body in rendering it unusually 
susceptible of those diseases, is proved by uni- 
versal experience. The other class of preventive 
remedies comprises modes of exciting the animal 
powers by food, spirituous liquors, and so on, or 
of diminishing its sensibility by narcotics, such 



MALARIA. 



281 



as tobacco and opium. Of the utility of these 
expedients, the experience is ample. Besides 
this, there are circumstances, such as may occur 
in camps, for example, as well as in other cases, 
where the production of fire and smoke may 
operate, and appears actually to do so, in de- 
stroying the Malaria or impeding its pro- 
pagation. 

Hence, in the first place, the general practice 
in countries noted for Malaria, not to leave the 
house in the morning without food, or without 
the previous use of spirituous liquors ; and hence 
also the great use of tobacco in Holland, as well 
as its adoption by military men in campaigns. 
To avoid falling asleep, particularly in the night, 
is the steady recommendation of even the postil- 
lions of Lombardy ; and I need scarcely remind 
any reader of travels how the same doctrine is 
enforced respecting the dews of the intertropical 
climates. . ^ ^ 

With respect to the former remedy, such at 
least is the opinion of that country, as of many 
others, from experience real or imaginary ; and 
such indeed has been a prevaiHng belief among 
physicians as well as the people ; as is far too well 
known to insist on. Yet Rush, from whom it 
would not be prudent to differ without strong rea- 



282 



PROPAGATION OF 



sons^ and Moseley, whose opinions have not al- 
ways obtained the same respect, assert, that even 
the moderate use of wine renders persons more 
susceptible of the yellow fever, or of the remit- 
tents of hot climates in general ; while, in the 
noted epidemics of New York, the former physi- 
cian was accustomed to urge even a great degree 
of abstinence from food, as a security ; confirming 
his opinions by his own practice on himnelf. It 
is assuredly as difficult to decide between con- 
tending evidences, as it sometimes is to attain the 
truth at all in physic. No one doubts indeed that 
excess, whether in eating or drinking, but espe- 
cially in the latter, is pernicious in those situa- 
tions ; but it is difficult to admit that a degree of 
abstinence capable of producing debility should 
not render the people more susceptible of fever, 
since this is the admitted effect of every debilita- 
ting cause. Nevertheless, it seems necessary here 
to suspend our judgments, as far at least as the 
hot climates are concerned : while if the compa- 
rative exemption of the French or Spaniards, 
when compared to the English, under these cir- 
cumstances, seems rather to depend on the dif- 
ference between moderation and excess, though 
probably also, as I shall here presently show, arising 
from the superior security of a vegetable diet. 



MALARIA. 



283 



there maybe peculiarities concerned in this case, ^ 
depending on climate, on which we, unacquainted 
with the disease in these situations^ are not com- 
petent to decide. 

On this subject however, Sir J. Pringle is de- 
cided, and from an experience the nature of 
which is well known to all medical readers ; re- 
commending the use of wine and of a full or good 
diet, and thus, while he agrees, assuredly, with 
the great majority of medical practitioners, and 
with, probably, all the people of Europe, oppo- 
sing experience to experience and judgment to 
judgment. Such also was the opinion of General 
Monnet at Flushing, and such his practice ; con- 
sisting, like that of the Dutch in general, in giving 
some spirituous liquor to his men early in the 
morning: while the same opinions prevail all 
through France ; it being invariably said by the 
physicians of that country, that the use of wine 
is indispensible in the marshy districts. 

How shall we reconcile conflicting testimonies ? 
unless wc should suppose some peculiarity in the 
fevers of America, or perhaps conjecture what 
has happened too often in physic, that the Ame- 
rican physician has viewed this question under a 
prejudice or an hypothesis. It may perhaps in- 
deed be the fact, that the remarks in question 



284 



PROPAGATION OF 



were intended to apply rather to that contagious, 
if disputed^ fever, the notorious Bulam disease, 
than to the yellow, marsh, or remittent fever ; 
but even in this case we remain still at a loss ; 
since it has been a general conviction that the use 
of a good diet and wine enabled men to resist the 
attacks of all the contagious fevers. 

The superior security of the officers to the 
men in naval, or maritime, service, when em- 
ployed together in duties on shore, has long been 
remarked ; and if other causes than a better diet, 
well known to physicians, may be supposed here 
to aid in the result, I have found that those intel- 
ligent naval officers whom I have questioned on 
this point, attribute their superior exemption 
solely to the causes under review ; assuring me 
that they had on numerous occasions levelled 
themselves with the men in every circumstance 
of exposure, clothing, fatigue, sleeping, and so 
forth, and that remaining in health while their 
entire boats' crews sometimes caught the fever, 
they could not discover any other dilFerence, and 
had become convinced that the superiority of 
their diet and the regular use of wine formed 
their protection. That similar opinions have al- 
ways prevailed through our armies, as to the 
relative security of the officers and men under 



MALARIA. 



285 



exposure to the causes of fever^ in all countries 
and climates, I surely need not urge; and after 
all the cross-examination to which this subject 
can be submitted, so as to abstract and allow for 
other differences, it seems impossible to doubt 
that these opinions are well founded. 

To speak now of the other mode of prevention 
to w^hich I have just alluded, instances might be 
quoted, and from the histories of military cam- 
paigns as from other cases, of the utility of fires 
and smoke ; nearly the whole of these useful doc- 
trines being embodied in the philosophy of Uncle 
Toby respecting the radical heat and the radical 
moisture. If this has sometimes been disputed, 
and the action of fires in such cases not seldom 
also misapprehended, it has arisen as usual, from 
a confusion of ideas, or a confounding of differ- 
ent circumstances. That in this case they may 
act, at least in two ways, is obvious ; that is, by 
drying the surrounding air and thus diminishing 
its conducting power, and by producing a dis- 
persive ventilation, or bringing a salubrious mass 
of air on an unhealthy point : while I need not 
insist on their further and medical effect on the 
susceptibility of the persons exposed to the poi- 
son. As to facts in proof of the utility of fires, 
Lancisi points it out as to Rome ; and even Pliny, 



286 



PROPAGATION OF 



long ago, declares the same opinion, quoting, 
further, the authorities of Empedocles and Hippo- 
crates to the same effect. That Napoleon took 
the same view of their use, adopting this expe- 
dient very largely, and with success, when his 
armies were occupied in the very worst district of 
Italy, is a specimen of military experience which 
may save the necessity of quoting others less de- 
cisive. One very pointed case, of a civil nature, 
is also worth recording ; because, while it is al- 
ways particularly easy to imitate, and has been 
most unfortunately neglected, the circumstances 
are such as to interest ourselves, as colonists un- 
der some of our least satisfactory experiments of 
this nature. In this case, the superintendant 
engaged in directing the cutting of wood in 
Africa, erected thirty earthen furnaces on the spot 
where his men were employed, lighting them 
every day. Before this, he had always from forty 
to forty-eight of his workmen sick ; when, in a 
short time, they were reduced to twelve, then to 
four, and finally to one. Perhaps governors in 
Africa may profit by the hint ; if indeed they do 
not already know every thing belonging to this 
subject, interested as they are in it. 

It is perhaps as much out of place here, being 
a medical rather than a merely physical question, 



MALARIA. 



287 



as it is superfluous to medical readers, to notice 
those conditions of the body as to debility, which 
render it peculiarly susceptible of the action of 
Malaria ; while it would be utterly so to specify 
the debilitating circumstances, familiar as they are 
among medical writers. They are however im- 
portant facts for the people, even in the case of 
our own country ; and were it possible that such 
a work as this should ever reach the hands of the 
multitude, they would have justified a distinct 
code of familiar rules. 

But as I have been in a manner forced into a 
notice of the predisposing causes of the diseases 
of Malaria in considering the modes of prevention, 
I may here examine one, which, while it is not 
much known in our own country as a fact, or at 
least a fact established, appears of infinite im- 
portance to travellers or residents in tropical and 
dangerous climates ; that importance being also 
materially enhanced by the extraordinary, and 
indeed almost universal neglect which it expe- 
riences every where, even at this day. To that 
neglect in particular, it would seem that we must 
in a great measure attribute the almost universal 
mortality among our travellers into the unknown 
parts of middle Africa. 

It has been frequently remarked by travellers 



288 



PROPAGATION OF 



as well as physicians^ that what the latter call 
errors of diet are^ in the tropical climates^ com- 
mon causes of fever : and yet that observation 
has been so vaguely stated and so little urged, 
while its nature has also been so little explained, 
that it seems scarcely to have made any impres- 
sion. It may not be easy to explain why an 
action on the stomach so apparently simple as 
that of particular kinds of food, or that of eating 
in the heat of the day, should predispose to the 
fever of Malaria; and we must be content at 
present with the vague belief that it is a cause of 
temporary debility. 

Not to quote proofs or statements beyond ne- 
cessity, it may almost be sufficient to refer to Dr. 
Clarke's observations on the Crimea, where he 
points out the fact with his usual energy ; stating 
also the substances, such as butter, for example, 
which thus, in his mode of expressing himself, 
produce fever. From numerous other testimo- 
nies, it appears that the same hazard is incurred 
by the large use pf animal food in the same cir- 
cumstances, and most of all, if eaten, as Eu- 
ropeans use, in the middle of the day, or fre- 
quently in one day ; and on examining Niebuhr's 
account, it is most apparent that the deaths of his 
companions were the consequences of gross feed- 



\ 



MALARIA. 



289 



ing or, literally, of gluttony. It would not be 
difficult to analyze the histories of other inter- 
tropical travellers, so as to draw the same conclu- 
sion as to their fates ; and, among others, it is not 
unlikely to be the real solution of the extermination 
of Capt. Tuckey's party ; since the causes sought 
for at the time did not appear very satisfactory. 

On this question there can perhaps be no bet- 
ter evidence than the opinions and practices of 
the intertropical nations themselves ; among the 
mass of whom this subject seems well under- 
stood ; while in many countries, it is a caution 
actually often given to Europeans by the natives, 
though most generally neglected by them, and 
most particularly, it is said, by our own country- 
men. It is, possibly, from long experience, in 
some measure, of its advantages, as well as from 
more obvious causes, that a vegetable diet is so 
general throughout the aborigines of the torrid 
climates ; while it is doubtless from principle 
also, that among the people of Africa, to the 
northward at least, the sole or the principal meal 
is supper. Among some of the negro tribes, this 
indeed is not merely the practice, but the very 
reasons for it are assigned ; namely, the hazard 
or certainty of fever from eating in the heat of 
the day. This particular fact was ascertained 

IT 



290 



PROPAGATION OF 



distinctly by Major Denham ; and, whether it is 
urged in his printed account as it merited^ or not, 
it is derived, I am hiformed, from his strong per- 
sonal declaration, that he attributes his own pre- 
servation to his having thus followed the native 
philosophy in his practice. 

I need not protract this detail ; but it interests 
our colonists or residents in all the hotter cli- 
mates, and those in the West Indies and India 
in particular, to inquire whether their principal 
sufferings have not rather arisen from transfer- 
ring their gross and injudicious European habits 
to these countries, than from the mere climate ; 
whether they are not, in reality their own de- 
stroyers, from the indulgence of their appetites 
and improper habits. It has indeed been often 
said, that very frequently among our armies, and 
very widely also among the planters of the West 
Indies, the usages as to diet and mode of life are 
such as would be ruinous to health, even in Eu- 
rope ; far more under all the circumstances, and 
in the climates, where such a luxurious manner 
of living is the habit of society. 

And that this observation is not an unfounded 
one, will be confirmed on a comparison between 
our own colonists, as well as those of Holland 
and the northern voracious nations in general. 



MALARIA. 



291 



and those of France^ and apparently also of 
Spain ; though with a want of observation not 
uncommon^ added to the desire of finding ex- 
cuses for self-indulgence^ the superior durability 
of the two latter people as tropical colonists^ has 
been attributed to the change of climate being, as 
to them, less. They who will reflect on what 
has now been said, and then compare the actual 
life of a French colonist with an English or a 
Dutch one, will probably accede to the conclusion 
which is here drawn. 

I may also borrow a fact to the same effect 
from Captain Symes, and respecting a people not 
less delighting in voracious eating and animal 
food than those to whom I have been alluding. 
He says, it is true, that the lake in Ava which 
was his abode during his embassy, was not un- 
healthy ; but the Chinese ambassadors, neverthe- 
less, all died of fevers from eating, while his own 
people escaped, in consequence of better disci- 
pline : proving the fact under review, and also 
suggesting that his report as to the salubrity of 
this situation was not to be taken in a rigid sense, 
but in a comparative one. 

If, in examining the propagation of Malaria 
from chemical considerations, I have also been 
compelled to notice its checks, this is the proper 



292 



PROPAGATION OF 



place to state one fact at least which bears upon 
this subject^ respecting which there can be no 
doubt : while I could without difficulty^ support 
it by other parallel ones. 

I have given an account of the propagation of 
Malaria through Rome^ and have therefore been 
in some measure compelled to anticipate this 
particular subject. Here^ the Judaicum^ which 
might be expected to suffer as well as the streets 
around it^ is always^ as I am informed, generally 
may at least be believed, free from the diseases in 
question : and what the confinement and filth of 
that place is, needs not to be stated to those who 
know Rome, even by reading. It might not be 
safe to conclude from this single fact, that the 
propagation of Malaria cannot take place through 
similarly crowded streets or towns ; but the ge- 
neral truth is confirmed by so many more of the 
same nature, and in so many places, that it may 
safely be considered as one of the established 
rules relating to the transference or effects of 
this poison. 

Nor does it seem difficult of explanation ; of 
that general explanation at least which is all that 
we can expect on a subject where our knowledge 
is as yet so short of accuracy. The Malaria must 
be a chemical compound, and therefore decom- 



MALARIA. 



293 



posable : it is, experimentally, decomposed by 
fire and smoke, and it is therefore probable, that, 
amid the unknown mixture which forms the at- 
mosphere of crowded streets or habitations, it is 
actually destroyed. 

If, at present, we cannot speak more precisely 
as to the cause, the fact itself is, in practice, one 
of considerable interest, and also of some value. 
Historically, we can never believe that the fevers 
which raged in Rome annually during the time of 
the Roman empire, that the month which adducit 
febres et testamenta resignat," the " Septembres 
horae" which drove all the opulent from the city 
to take shelter in their country houses, was as 
fatal to the lower citizens as to the upper ranks, 
however the depressed state of these, under a 
patrician nobility and a tyrannical government, 
with the want of statistical notices on that sub- 
ject, may have rendered their sufferings despised, 
and left our own information imperfect. 

It is far more probable that they did not suffer 
like the more wealthy ; and from the causes now 
laid down : and the history of Rome as to health, 
then, was probably much the same as it is now ; 
the present fact establishing the former probabi^ 
lity. It was, literally. Death knocking at the 
door of th€ opulent to spare the mecUi; not 



294 



PROPAGATION OF 



marching " aequo pede" through the " pauperum 
tahernas regumque turres." And that the causes 
of prevention in question did exist as to the lower 
orders^ seems plain from a computation of the 
population of Rome during the most flourishing 
state of the empire^ and from a comparison of 
this witk the dimensions of the city ; a computa- 
tion for which I may refer to Gibbon's essay, 
proving that the people were condensed into the 
floors of lofty houses, as in Paris ; and apparently 
also into crowded and narrow streets, as in 
Athens, the Wapping of Greece. Be this as it 
may, the poverty of the great mass of citizens in 
Rome at that time, and indeed at all others, is 
evinced by the barbarous practice of eleemosi- 
nary distributions j which proves, not only a want 
of industry as well as of employment, but an en- 
tire debasement of the feelings, and, consequent- 
ly, of all the habits of life. They were poor, and 
their habitations could not have been better than 
their food. It would be a matter of some sur- 
prise, if any part of ancient Rome inhabited by 
the lower herd of citizens, was even as convenient 
as the present retreat of its wretched Jews. But 
I must avoid the hazard of running too deeply 
into antiquarian researches ; it seems probable 
that a parallel case exists in our own capital. 



MALARIA. 



295 



If, as having been a subject held out to pub- 
lic as well as to official medical discussion, I for- 
merly noticed the ill health which had unexpect- 
edly appeared in the Penitentiary, I am bound to 
remark, that in rendering it independent of the 
streets, the intention was good in more modes 
than one : since neither was Malaria suspected, 
nor was the nature of the remedy which I have 
been discussing, imagined. And while it affords 
a striking analogy to the case of the Salpetriere, 
though the diseases were different^ we may now 
see why this ill health does not invade the 
crowded streets of this division : since a Malaria 
which, in far greater virulence, cannot enter the 
Judaicum of Rome, must effectually be repelled 
in this closely inhabited spot. Thus one class of 
misery becomes the remedy for another : while 
this explains the doubts of those who, unac- 
quainted with the nature of this check, not unrea- 
sonably denied the very existence of the cause. If 
its operation has been now terminated by a better 
diet and other regulations, the reasons are fami- 
liar to physic : while it is also quite possible that 
either the production or the propagation of the 
Malaria, or both, have been dimished by some of 
the changes formerly pointed out. 

I am quite aware that I ought to have quoted 



296 



PROPAGATION OF 



many more specific cases than I have done, not 
only on this point but many others, as examples 
in evidence; particularly upon those least sus- 
pected situations and soils productive of Malaria : 
since, from not having done this, I have incurred 
the hazard of diminishing the credit due to these 
statements, and, consequently, of impeding that 
utility which has been my sole object ; to say no- 
thing of the personal inconvenience that ought to 
result from asserting more than I have proved. 
For the former I grieve ; the latter I must bear : 
but it is not for veant of local proofs that they are 
not produced ; as I could have amply established 
in this manner every thing that has been ad- 
vanced. But when the sole intention of this essay 
has been the public good, the diminution of sick- 
ness and suffering, I could not but recollect that 
in pointing out insalubrious spots, though for the 
mere purpose of evidence, and for the sake of 
teaching the people, by examples, how to recog- 
nize the characters of such places generally, in- 
dividual inconvenience, or even injury, might per- 
chance have followed. 

I trust that I have avoided this ; and it has as- 
suredly not been for want of anxiety : while, in 
as far as any occupation of land by means of new 
buildings, in any situation in England, is intended, 



MALARIA. 



297 



it can effect but good^ to remind the public of 
this and the other precautions which may be de- 
duced from the different facts here stated. Thus 
for example, the substitution of a spacious and 
airy street for a narrow and ill-ventilated one, 
might, in such a situation, be hazardous, as the 
example of Rome testifies : and if therefore it is 
intended to occupy in this manner, any question- 
able place, it would be prudent to commence by 
laying dry any lands which are of a suspicious 
character ; because, in the views here taken, they 
will, in some season or other, if not in every 
year, become productive of Malaria and disease. 

That I have not misstated the facts, nor the 
causes, as to any part of England where they may 
occur, will be vouched by at least every French 
and Italian physician accustomed to such lands 
and to the diseases which are their produce ; 
while the endemic autumnal fevers, which, in the 
year 1826, amounted to almost an epidemic in so 
many places throughout the country, and in some 
very particularly, which I ought to have here 
named were it not for the reasons which I have 
just given, cannot fail to convince those English 
practitioners who, from military and foreign ser- 
vice, have been familiar with the disorders of hot 
climates ; however little impression this circum- 



298 



PROPAGATION OF 



Stance may make on others, and on those espe- 
cially who follow the popular opinions in consi- 
dering them as typhus, or who, otherwise, under 
a minor error, attribute the cause to heat simply, 
or to the use of fruit, or to whatever else of this 
imaginary nature. And if, in the last chapter, I 
stated the general revolution of increase which 
Malaria might experience from the progressive 
embankment of rivers, I should be deficient in 
the duty which I have here undertaken, did I not 
point out how this very condition of things was 
taking place in many parts of the Thames ; 
^ though little perceived or understood by the peo- 
ple, nor justly apprehended except by geologists 
and engineers. If I forbear to specify the exact 
spots, however involving the health of the capital, 
for the reasons just assigned, the mere pointing 
out the general fact and its theory as it concerns 
us, will suffice for those who may be interested 
locally, and who may have it in their power to 
apply the remedies by a more efficient and ex- 
tended drainage ; not longer to be commanded 
for many places, by flood gates and low water 
canals, and demanding now, what in reality these 
have long since done, the use of lifting ma- 
chinery. 

It is so easy to apply the general principle in 



MALARIA. 



299 



cjuestion to the explanation of all similar cases, 
that I shall here terminate this particular discus- 
sion, and proceed to examine that problematical 
fact to which I have lately alluded, relating to the 
personal prevention of disease under the presence 
of Malaria. The fact, as it is stated, is simply 
this ; that by surrounding the head w ith a gauze 
viel or conopeum, the action of Malaria is pre- 
vented, and that thus it is possible even to sleep 
in the most pernicious parts of Italy without ha- 
zard of fever. In Malta and elsewhere, this be- 
lief is universal : and hence the popular practice 
of covering the mouth and nose with a handker- 
chief*, in the morning on going out, or in other 
suspicious circumstances : a practice, the efficacy 
of which is attested, as far as popular belief can 
attest any thing. Thus also, in Spain and Por- 
tugal, it is a common or universal habit to draw 
the mantilla over the mouth when in suspected 
places, as also in foggy weather and east winds. 
Perhaps however it is a fact yet wanting confir- 
mation ; but it is not improbable on theory, be- 
cause we can thus conceive an atmosphere from 
the lungs, accumulated within the veil, capable of 
decomposing the Malaria. A popular practice 
in fogs, in our own country, that of applying a 
handkerchief to the mouth and nostrils, may not 



300 



PROPAGATlOK OF 



therefore be so fanciful a prevention of disease 
as it is a vulgar one ; however often misapplied. 

On this subject^ I may add that I have sug- 
gested to different naval officers, the propriety of 
at least trying this experiment in a manner and 
on a scale which could scarcely fail to give a true 
result ; while if it did prove successful, its value 
would be far greater than is easily imagined by 
those who are not acquainted with the details of 
nautical service on the African coast and else- 
where, and in the former, very particularly, in 
that destructive service, the cutting of wood. It 
would be abundantly easy to make the compara- 
tive trial on two boats' crews employed on the 
same duty ; and as it much too often happens 
that every individual from one boat is seized by 
the fever after such an expedition, even a single 
trial perhaps, or at least a very few, would de- 
termine the question ; while the experiment is 
amply justifiable, inasmuch as it is not one which 
exposes life, but which attempts to preserve it. 
As yet, 1 have not succeeded in procuring this 
trial to be made ; and if the publicity which I am 
attempting to give to it here, is not likely to be 
very great, it is still possible that the hint may 
at some day reach the ears of those in whose 
power it may be to put it into practice. 



MALARIA. 



301 



It is true that there is an objection to this opi- 
nion^ founded on a theoretical view of the action 
of Malaria on the body ; but before it is admit- 
ted as a valid one, it ought to be proved that the 
theory is true. It is Brocchi who argues most 
strenuously to prove that the poison is received 
by the skin and not by the lungs ; and as the 
question is of some importance^ I must both give 
and examine his arguments. 

It is certainly not a point easy to prove by any, 
direct means, that the poison of Malaria is re- 
ceived by the lungs and not by the skin ; yet it 
would be a very natural priori inference, that, 
of two surfaces, that which is most perfectly ex- 
posed to the action of air, which is infinitely the 
most sensible, which is also the most extensive, 
and which, lastly, does decompose the air which 
it receives, should be the real agent in the trans- 
mission of this substance. To argue from Riche- 
rand, as Brocchi does, that because (supposing 
it even true) the absorbents of the skin are most 
active during sleep, and because Malaria attacks 
a sleeping person most readily, the poison must 
enter in this manner, appears sufficiently puerile, 
when we know that the peculiar state of the 
body in sleep, is favourable to the access of many 
other diseases. And if, as is a prevailing opinion 



302 



PROPAGATION OF 



in many parts of Italy, and in Malta also very 
especially, the practice of covering the mouth, 
which I have just noticed, does prevent danger, 
here is a direct testimony for the reverse con- 
clusion. 

But it seems unnecessary to argue this point 
on the grounds of physic or physiology ; since, 
with little of direct evidence, every one will, as 
usual, conclude according to his favourite hypo- 
thesis. Yet in as far as the writer in question 
attempts to support his theory by the history of 
ancient Rome, his arguments appear sufficiently 
weak. As I have remarked elsewhere, he tries 
to prove that the difference of salubrity in the 
former and in the present times, arose from the 
use of woollen clothing, or of the toga, by the 
older Romans ; and, refining still further, endea- 
vours to trace the increasing severity, as he ima- 
gines, of febrile seasons in the time of the em- 
pire^ to the increase of luxury and the substitu- 
tion of silk and linen for wool ; attributing also, 
idly enough, the fact that the inferior animals are 
not affected by these fevers, to their furry or hairy 
coats ; an imaginary fact also, since I shall here- 
after show that this is not true. 

The period in question commences at the de- 
cline of the republic, as is evinced by the attack 



MALARIA. 



303 



of Cicero on Cataiine ; the toga gradually giving 
way to a lighter garment, and the use of silk be- 
coming still more common in the reign of Tibe- 
rius. It is however unnecessary to pursue this, 
nor to examine the collateral arguments by which 
the opinion is supported; deduced from the fact 
that the rich only left the city, because, says 
Brocchi, their light and luxurious dresses ren- 
dered them peculiarly or solely susceptible of the 
fevers, and from others of equally little bearing 
on the question. The rich migrated, while the 
poor could not; and to whatever other causes 
the relative states of health at the various periods 
in question may be attributed, I have examined 
them as far as they present any probabilities, in 
another place. I shall only farther remark, that 
the time fixed on for the supposed increase of 
unhealthiness, is precisely that when luxury and 
ease, and I may add the new existence or increase 
of physicians, rendered questions of sickness and 
health matters of more attention than before ; 
and when also the increase of writers produced 
records which could not have existed at earlier 
periods. 

But I think it fruitless to pursue further a 
speculative opinion of this nature ; admitting 
only, the propriety and utility of warm or non- 



304 



PROPAGATION OF 



conducting clothing, even of wool if any one shall 
prefer it, on the well known grounds that cold 
and wet, or exposure generally, is injurious, as 
aiding the activity of all contagions or diseases, 
and of Malaria and its consequences among the 
rest ; -while also capable, as I have elsewhere 
shewn, of renewing a fever of habit without a 
fresh application of the primary cause : possibly 
indeed, capable in itself of generating intermit- 
tent or the other diseases of this class. 

That I may not be obliged to recur to this 
question, namely, the mode in which the poison 
of Malaria is introduced into the system, I may 
as well remark here also, that there is a third 
party which supposes that it acts through the in- 
tervention of the stomach ; while some, wishing 
possibly to reconcile or unite all opinions, con- 
ceive that it acts on every accessible surface ; on 
the skin, the lungs, and the stomach. That the 
plague, and that contagious fevers in general are 
received through the stomach, has, it is well 
known, been a very common opinion ; and there 
are certainly not wanting facts to give a colour 
to such a theory, though short of that evidence 
which should produce philosophical conviction, 
while not a little opposed by the well known ex- 
periments which indicate the power of the sto- 



MALARIA. 



305 



iiiach in decomposing certain animal poisons. I 
need not re-examine so hacknied a question ; 
while, as I have just remarked, it is probable, 
that, as is usual under defective evidence, each 
man's opinion will be regulated by his affections 
for the one hypothesis or the other. That my 
own opinions are undecided because the evidence 
is insufficient, is perhaps apparent ; however little 
that state of willingness to wait, may concern the 
reader. 

It has been asked whether Malaria might, like 
contagion, be carried in the clothes of a person, 
or retained, as all those are, in a dead substance, 
so as to communicate the disease at a distance of 
place and time. This is a question to which I 
alluded in the commencement of this chapter ; 
and which, if I passed by it then, I would gladly 
pass now, if I did not feel that it was necessary 
to prove that at least I had not passed it from 
indolence, but from the difficulty of saying any 
thing satisfactory respecting it. It seems almost 
impossible to find an answer to this question, 
from experience ; as, in almost every instance 
where we might seek to find it communicated in 
this manner, the fact that every individual may 
have been similarly exposed to the original source 
of disease, renders the investigation nearly im- 



306 



PROPAGATION OF 



possible. It is a doubt that might perhaps be 
put to the test of direct experiment ; but I can- 
not discover that any such trial has been made. 
It is perhaps indeed more a question of curiosity 
than use; though nothing is useless in philosophy 
which tends to make us better acquainted with 
the subjects of our investigations. If we could 
rely on priori reasoning, we should perhaps de- 
cide that this w^as possible ; since we can see no 
cause why one compound gas should not possess 
this property as w^ell as another ; Malaria as well 
as contagion. And there, for the present, must 
we rest. 

If, as somew^hat diverging from this question, 
that much more important one, namely, whether 
the fever of Malaria can propagate itself from 
one subject to another, is rather an inquiry be- 
longing to the medical division of this entire 
work, I know not but that it may as well take its 
place here. That it has been a subject much 
discussed, and with no small energy, or even 
acrimony, I need not say, while, as on many other 
much arguad points, the contending parties have 
often been divided, from neglecting to commence 
by a mutual understanding of the objects in dis- 
pute. Whether any particular endemic or epi- 
demic w as or was not a cojitagious disease, is a 



MALARIA. 



somewhat separate medical question ; on which 
I shall not now touch, as the inquiry here is of 
a (lilFerent nature. 

The facts proving that remittents and dysen- 
teries unquestionahly arising from Malaria, have, 
in their progress or continuance, become conta- 
gious diseases, though not so originally, are nu- 
merous, and rest on as good authorities as physic 
has to produce. When I quote Pringle and Lind 
and Blane, referring to facts well known to phy- 
sicians, and which 1 need not therefore extract, 
the authority seems not of a nature to be doubt- 
ed; though it is as positively contradicted by Pym 
and many more, as it seems to be, very generally, 
in France. Nor is it easy to see where the ob- 
jection lies. The assertion, or the fact, does not 
imply that the fever of any one individual did 
reproduce, through his secretions, a Malaria si- 
milar to the original one, and therefore a fever or 
dysentery of Malaria ; but merely, that, under 
such a state of disease, the morbid secretions in 
question bec?ane the source as well as the matter 
of the contagion ; as happens even with respect 
to healthy persons under peculiar and well known 
circumstances. The original disease disappeared, 
and a new one was produced ; or, in the morbid 
individual, one fever was converted into another 

X 2 



.308 



PROPAGATION OF 



of a different character ; just as, under other dis- 
eases, a contagious hospital disorder of any na- 
ture may be superinduced on the first, even to 
its extinction. Or, it is not that the remittent 
fever of marshes is contagious, but that it may- 
become, or give way to, a contagious fever. It 
is perhaps a certain heat of temper excited in 
maintaining a recent hypothesis, which seems to 
have viewed this subject in a different and un- 
founded Hght, leading to much superfluous and 
some angry writing. 

I have reserved to the last place one of the 
most difficult questions relating to the propaga- 
tion of Malaria ; a question in which is involved 
that of the peculiar effects of east winds ; and it 
relates to the distance to Avhich the poison can 
be transported. It is admitted that the subject 
Is obscure and disputed; but that must not be 
an obstacle in the way of its examination. 

While it is asserted by many writers that it 
cannot be transported beyond a very moderate 
distance from the place of its production, or that 
it is almost limited to the very spot where it is 
formed, there is evidence to prove that this is a 
groundless opinion or the result of bad observa- 
tion : while, like much more of assertion, on this 
and every other subject where medicine is con- 



4 



' MALARIA. 309 

cerned, it may be traced to a far too comnion prac- 
tice among writers^ on this^ and on other physical 
subjects ; when, unable to throw light on a dif- 
ficult inquiry by their own knowledge or powers 
of reasoning, they attempt to attract attention by 
opposing whatever is advanced by research and 
ability. 

To commence witli an indisputable fact ; what 
I have already noticed respecting the propagation 
of Malaria from the Thames over the hills of 
Kent, proves that it can be conveyed through the 
winds, to distances of some miles from its ori- 
ginal place of production ; while there would be 
little difficulty in finding numerous other similar 
instances, and equally marked. And as, in this 
particular case, the original Malaria, whether as 
to quantity or virulence, cannot be very consider- 
able, it is easy to believe that in more favourable 
circumstances, it may be transported to distances 
far greater. 

And, by analogy, we can see reasons in confir- 
mation of this opinion, as it is further supported 
by certain meteorological facts. Odours are con- 
veyed, notedly, to great distances through the air, 
and often in a very concentrated state ; and it is 
not easy to conceive how the quantity of matter 
in Malaria can be much less than^the quantity of 



310 



PROPAGATION OF 



tlie matter of odour^ while it is certain that in- 
appretiahle quantities of this^ as of all contagions^ 
are sufficient to produce their respective diseases. 
If the "Sahean odours" and "spicy gales" of 
Arabia range the seas of that shore rather in 
poetry than in reality, it is certain, -not only that 
dogs can smell the land from sea, long before it 
is visible, and at very great distances, but that it 
is sensible to our own organs when many miles 
distant. And thus also can the smell of the sea, 
which, in reality, is the smell from fish, be often 
perceived at great distances inland ; as the odour 
from a large fish at sea, from a whale or a shark, 
is often extremely powerful, and even offensive, 
as far off as the spouting, or the animal itself, is 
visible from the mast head. 

The meteorological argument rests on the dis- 
tances to which local or limited fogs can be car- 
ried by the winds, and to the often enormous 
ones to which even a very small cloud can be 
transported, without the loss of its integrity. 
Here, it is plain, an extremely tender aggregation 
of a substance which may almost be considered 
a gas, is maintained entire, by some internal affi- 
nity of its ovrn, while floating in another gas, 
aud subject to a degree of mechanical violence, 
independently of destructive chemical actions 



MALARIA. 



311 



easily conceived^ which should be supposed ca- 
pable of causing its immediate dispersion. 

Why might not a Malaria possess the same 
means of preserving its integrity^ and the same 
power of undergoing transportation ? No, one 
dares decide on the impossibility ; yet that^ it 
must be owned^ is not a proof that there is this 
power. It is however rendered directly probable 
by the following fact. It has been shown that 
Malaria combines especially with a moist atmos- 
phere, or with fogs and mists. It is, in reality, 
combined with a cloud ; and since that is indefi- 
nitely transportable, we can see no reason why 
the Malaria should not also be transported with 
it. If not decomposed by this union at first, 
there is no apparent reason w^hy it should be de- 
composed afterwards ; and thus it may travel the 
atmosphere, under the protection of its original 
receptacle, to distances which we can scarcely 
venture to limit. 

And, to a certain extent, experience proves 
that this actually happens ; that the cloud is not 
only the vehicle of the Malaria as it is its recep- 
tacle, but that it does transport this poison to 
considerable distances. This is precisely the po- 
pular, as well as the philosophical experience, 
respecting the diseases wafted by fogs ; and the 



312 



PROPAGATION OF 



only question that remains, relates to the distance. 
Theoretically, we might decide^ that as far as the 
fog produced by, or over, a land of Malaria tra- 
vels, so far might the Malaria itself be carried, 
even without the aid of this vehicle ; and it only 
remains to inquire what experience there is as to 
the actual distance so travelled ; a circumstance 
to be determined only by examining into the dis- 
eases produced in this manner. On this subject, 
I can find no observations of any great value or 
precision ; but as it deserves to be examined, 
these suggestions may perhaps prove a stimulus 
to its future investigation. 

Yet I must offer a few remarks that bear on 
this fact, of which the first appears sufficiently 
precise as far as it extends ; the latter will doubt- 
less be a subject of dispute. 

Seamen observe that the land breeze in tropi- 
cal climates brings off with it the fevers of the 
shore : and indeed were this not the case, we 
could scarcely account for the production, in cer- 
tain instances, of the common remittent fevers 
at sea, when in tropical climates ; while, partly 
perhaps from inattention to this fact, though 
more, doubtless, from a confusion of ideas re- 
specting fever, this disease is often mistaken for 
contagious typhus. I allude here to the appear- 



MALARIA. 



313 



ance of fever in clean ships, or in ca^cs where 
there has been none while at sea, but where it 
has appeared on coming into harbour or nearing 
the land ; because I have formerly shown that 
bilge water will, in all probability, often explain 
the production of fevers when in the ocean or far 
from land. I have examined voyages and made 
inquiries in vain, to find a large limit of distance 
as to the appearance of the remittent fever at 
sea ; but have had little success, from the want 
of corresponding entries in the log book, to com- 
pare with the event. If I have imagined that I 
could produce examples of this occurrence at far 
greater distances than has ever been imagined, I 
prefer avoiding to insist on such cases ; while 
perhaps others, hereafter, may be induced to turn 
their attention to this subject, and to note facts 
that shall have the sanction of accuracy. But I 
must also observe, that the fact just alluded to, 
the production of fevers by bilge water, will al- 
ways throw a doubt on any conclusions to be 
drawn in this manner, or perhaps impede the in- 
vestigation altogether ; unless we could at the 
same time be assured of the cleanliness of the 
vessel in question. 

But however I may have failed, myself, in pro- 
curing such evidence on this subject aa I should 



314 



PROPAGATION OF 



have desired^ I have not the least doubt that this 
information is to be found among naval officers 
and surgeons ; and while the present discussion 
may hereafter induce others^ in the way of criti- 
cism or assistance, to give to the world their yet 
unpublished knowledge regarding it, I shall not 
be surprised to find that to wha,tever distance a 
tropical land wind reaches, under a favourable 
state of atmosphere, at that point of a cruize has 
the fever also appeared in many instances. That 
within moderate limits, such as four, five, six, or 
more miles, the fever, or the Malaria, is blov/n 
off the shore to ships, I have found distinctly re- 
corded in the ships' journals in different instances ; 
as I have also been repeatedly informed that the 
smell becomes immediately sensible : while offi- 
cers aware of this danger on these coasts, quit 
the deck to go below, at the moment they per- 
ceive this change to have taken place, or even, on 
some occasions, weigh their anchors and run to 
sea. And though I have quoted one specific case 
of this nature in the medical part of this work, 
the accuracy of proof which it affords is so re- 
markable, that I must notice it here. ^ In this 
instance, with a healthy ship and crew, anchored 
at least four m.iles from the shore, a sudden 
change of wind brought out the smell of the land. 



MALARIA. 



31^ 



on which orders were immediately given for 
weighing ; while, even before the cable chain 
could be cleared, most of the men working at it, 
who were the only ones first permitted on deck, 
were seized with disease which proved the fatal 
cholera to the greater number. 

Of other observations, I must give such as I 
can find ; while, if I do not place any great confi- 
dence in their value as to the question at large, 
I am justified in this, from the manner in which 
they are recorded, and in which the supposed li- 
mits were attempted to be ascertained. That 
they do not even approach to the maximum, 
which is the question before us, is at once 
evident. 

Monfalcon, speaking very vaguely, and with- 
out adducing any proofs, presumes that the Ma- 
laria never reaches above five or six hundred 
yards perpendicularly on the acclivity of a 
mountain, nor beyond three or four hundred in 
a horizontal direction, provided it be calm. This 
may possibly be an approach to truth as it relates 
to the former case ; but in a calm, there is no 
apparent reason why it should even extend so far 
from the place of its production, since there is no 
horizontal current in this case, while there is very 
often a vertical one in the olhcr. When, in tlic 



316 



PROPAGATION OF 



West Indies^ it has been plainly ascertained to 
reach to three miles at sea, it is Lind (I think) 
Avho seems inclined to make this a maximum ; 
yet from facts far too partial and limited to per- 
mit such a conclusion. Another observer, equally 
decisive, attempts to establish a maximum from a 
single observation, namely at Walcheren ; and 
thus, by others if not hy him, 3000 yards has 
been fixed as the boundary which it is not to 
pass. If it spreads three miles in the West In- 
dies, and if, similarly, it is proved that, from the 
Lake Agnano, it reaches three miles to the con- 
vent of Camaldoli, seated on a high hill, it is 
plain at any rate, that the maximum derived from 
Walcheren is too low ; while, though I cannot 
find a definite point fixed by the different obser- 
vers who appear to have taken views of this sub- 
ject not unlike my own, I may name Volney, Or- 
landi, Senac, Fodere, Lancisi, as admitting that 
it spreads to great distances ; as is also believed 
very extensively in Italy, in Corsica, in India, and 
elsewhere. I may proceed to state what further 
has occurred to my own reflections on the same 
subject. 

The first fact is derived from our own climate, 
and it relates to the appearance of the diseases of 
Malaria on our eastern coasts in east winds, par- 



MALARIA. 



317 



ticularly in spring ; since^ as far as my observa- 
tion goes^ this transportation is limited to inter- 
mittents ; a fact for which the reasons will short- 
ly be sufficiently obvious. And I must here take^ 
first, the case of a fog or cloud, as being the sim- 
plest, and as the rigid continuation of the present 
inquiry. 

It consists with the experience of all the inha- 
bitants of our eastern shore, that the ague often 
appears with the fogs of spring which arrive from 
the sea ; that, in fact, they are brought in that fog 
which is popularly supposed their real cause. 
Now, if, in Essex or Lincolnshire, there are cases 
where the Malaria might be generated from the 
immediate land, appearing to have arrived in the 
fog, only by a deception, there arc points on the 
coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, as in many other 
places, where no local Malaria exists for many 
miles, and in which, if the agues did not arrive 
in the sea fog, they could not appear at all. And 
this is no less true of the eastern coasts of Scot- 
land where ague, as a local endemic disease, is 
unknown, and where no Malaria is generated. 

What then is the solution of this ? Obviously, 
that on which I have just speculated, and which 
these facts confirm. Holland or the shores to the 
northward are here probably tlie sources of the 



318 



PROPAGATION OF 



Malaria, and it is transported to our own coasts 
in the fog and by the east winds. It is never 
brought by v/cst winds and fogs to the western 
shores^ because there is no western focus of Ma- 
laria; nor by northern ones, for the same reason. 
To assign the cause to the east wind simply as 
such, is to assert that the atmosphere is itself a 
Malaria, or that water is the poison ; since, of 
these two things, the chemical compound, air, 
and water, is pure wind compounded : it is to 
abandon the whole theory of Malaria, supported 
as it is by the most uncontrovertible proofs, or it 
is to assert that of which there is no proof, no- 
thing but the assertion of bad observation ; that the 
air alone in a particular state, or mere cold and 
moisture, will produce original ague. If it did 
this, why is it not as common in the frozen or 
cold regions as with us ; why does it increase 
with heat and vegetation ; why does it attend ex- 
clusively the season of vegetation, and why do 
not the dry barren deserts of Africa produce the 
same fevers as its swamps and jungles ? The air 
and its water are vehicles of poison, not poison ^ 
mediums for communicating diseases, not causes 
of disease. After this, why persist in that un- 
discriminating and slovenly philosophy, if philo- 
sophy it may be called, which attributes the dis- 



MALARIA. 



319 



eases of Malaria to wind and fog, becaus^e they 
chance to come from the east rather than the west. 
Were such wind^ per se, the cause of fever, when 
and where would the lands under the trade wind 
be exempt from disease, and how should even a 
ship escape amid the equatorial seas ? St. Helena 
would never be exempt from agues ; and the fa- 
mily of Napoleon at least, exposed to the perpe- 
tual south-easterly fogs at Longwood, would 
scarcely have avoided this fate ; whatever security 
he might have acquired from having breathed his 
first air at Ajaccio. 

This question is so important in a merely me- 
dical view, that I must here urge it, since it is 
one that will not recur in the future parts of this 
essay. It is from carelessness, or from want of 
observation and of reflection, as well as from the 
habit of following the phraseology of medical 
schools instead of reasoning, that physicians, and 
the people in consequence, persist in talking of 
cold and moisture, and moist winds, and east 
winds, and fogs, as the causes of intermittent ; 
having, with somewhat more of reason maintained, 
and possibly, as to some points, proved, that they 
generate sundry other diseases ; and thus con- 
founding both causes and effects, because these 
are particular winds and because there are accom- 



320 



PROPAGATION OF 



panying disorders. The queries that I have just 
put on this subject can be answered decidedly. 
The east wind is as cold and as bitter when blow- 
ing across a frozen continent as it can ever be ; 
yet it produces no intermittent fever, because ve- 
getation is dormant, and decomposition is at a 
stand. If it blows across an extent of even un- 
frozen land in winter, it may cause diseases, but 
it brings no intermittents, for the same reasons. 
Here, it may be moist, and even foggy, as well 
as cold, as it is when it blows across an ocean ; 
and in this latter case, it does not produce inter- 
mittents, even in summer and when vegetation is 
active, provided it has swept no lands in its 
way. To be injurious in this sense, it must be a 
land wind while it is an east wind, and it must 
also blow, in our half of the globe, between March 
and October ; while, if it conducts fever better 
than another wind, it is only when it chances to 
be a better conductor than that one, or, when it 
is a moist wind. 

But it is not always a moist wind ; far from it: 
being commonly, in summer, the driest of winds, 
just as it forms, in the same manner, the burning 
and absorbent Harmattan in Africa : and when it 
is such, any other wind may exceed it in con- 
ducting power, while that will become the wind 



MALARIA. 



321 



of intermittents ; the very east-wind, as to all its 
morbid qualities, of the vulgar, provided it also 
traversed a land generating Malaria. Hence, as I 
shall presently show, does it arise, that even the 
east winds from Holland which bring intermit- 
tent in spring, do not equally bring the autumnal 
fevers ; because, even when they do blow, being at 
the same time less frequent and less rapid in move- 
ment, they are comparatively deprived of that 
especially conducting, and, chemical power, which 
they derive from their union with hygrometric 
water. 

In addition to what I have more generally said 
on that subject, it might be shewn by a geogra- 
phical detail, for which, could it even now be 
thought necessary, I dare not occupy room, that 
the action or effect of the east wind is not the 
same everywhere, and that, in the production of 
the diseases of Malaria, its power depends on the 
relative position of the poisonous lands and the 
persons suffering. It must be sufficient to point 
out one, almost at our own doors. In French 
Flanders, it is the south and the south-west winds 
that propagate the diseases of Malaria ; and the 
reason will be evident on inspecting the geogra- 
phy of this tract. And there, it is the north, and 
also the north-east, which remove them, because 

V 



322 



PROPAGATION OF 



s they blow from the sea; though charged with 
fogs to darken the whole land. This is the true 
view and the philosophy of every case. It is not 
quoad fog, any more than quoad east, that either 
the fog or the east wind is the parent or vehicle 
of fevers : it is in the sources of both that we 
must seek for the true causes, or in the lands 
which, if not their sources, they swe^p in their 
progress. 

But I must now examine this question a little 
more freely, and inquire somewhat further re- 
specting the east wind, simply, and independently 
of the transportation, by its means^ of distinct 
fogs or clouds. 

It is a popular observation that the east wind 
itself, in our ow^n country, at least in spring, is 
the cause of agues ; and an experience sufficiently 
extensive and accurate proves that this observa- 
_ tion is well founded : while it is not a fact, after 
what I have just said, requiring detailed proofs or 
a more minute statement. The opinion, or the 
fact, as to other countries, involves too wide an ex- 
tent, as it is also too difficult to verify, and I must 
therefore pass it over ; while the object here be- 
ing to prove the general principle, it is sufficient 
if it can be demonstrated from this selected case. 

Now we must here distinguish before we can 



MALARIA. 



323 



proceed. If we take the higher and western 
part of Lincolnshire;, for example, the east wind 
that reaches it must cross the fens not far dis- 
tant. This may be a very ordinary case of the 
propagation of Malaria by winds. Thus it is also 
for the eastern side of London, exposed to the 
transported Malaria of Essex. It is not always a 
pure case when the inland districts of England 
suffer. 

If it is a collateral remark, it is not an unin- 
teresting one, at least to the people of London, 
that, at all times, the seasons of remarkable east 
winds have been its seasons of intermittent. This 
was the fact with regard to the years 1765, 1766, 
1782, and 1808 ; and it has been similarly the 
case for these two or three years past, as, for one 
of these at least, the records of the London Hos- 
pital will particularly testify. And it is further 
remarkable, that, in some of those years, the lands 
to the eastward that used to generate intermit- 
tents only, produced continuous and remitting 
fevers. Here, among other matters, while trans- 
portation is proved, it is also apparent, as has 
been here remarked in different places, that, un- 
der varying circumstances, probably of quantity 
or intensity, the same land, and in the same season 
of the year, produces both ague and remittent or 

Y 2 



324 



PROPAGATION OF 



continuous fever ; and that the difference between 
dihition and concentration in the Malaria, will be, 
in effect, the difference between intermittent and 
remittent fever ; that is, supposing this to be an 
unvarying compound. 

But If, returning to the question in hand, we 
go forwards even to the sea side itself of the 
eastern coast, we find the same rule prevail as in 
the more marked instances of fogs. A simple or 
transparent east wind brings the diseases of Ma- 
laria, at least in spring; for the distinction is 
important, as I have just shown, between this 
season and the autumn. Here, as in the former 
case, if there could be any suspicion that the dis- 
eases arose out of a Malaria produced in the im- 
mediate soil, it is removed by the fact of their 
occurring in Scotland, in places where that poison 
is totally unknown, and in similar clear states of 
the atmosphere. Thus, for example, on a sudden 
change of the wind to the east, soldiers in the 
Castle of Edinburgh, susceptible of the disease 
from former habits, become immediately affected, 
when a north or north-west wind, equally cold, 
does not produce the same effects : while, in other 
places equally free of the endemic disease, a new- 
disorder is even produced in a new subject. 

The fact being thus supposed established, 



MALARIA. 



325 



there appears no reason why it should not de- 
serve credit, from general considerations ; or we 
may try the question according to principles or 
theory. I have shewn that a moist atmosphere is 
a peculiarly apt conductor of Malaria ; and this is 
the general character of the east winds of spring. 
If they can conduct it to certain distances in the dry 
state, they may convey it much further in the 
moist one ; while we must also not forget, that 
the mere circumstances of cold and moisture 
may possibly render the body more susceptible. 
And if the clear tropical winds can convey remittent 
far to sea, it is far from unreasonable to suppose 
that the east winds which reach us from Holland, 
may bring the Malaria of that country with it, 
though they should not convey a fog or a cloud 
at the same time. 

In a meteorological view, there are other reasans 
also in favour of the possibility of such a distant 
transportation. One of these is, the rapidity 
with which winds travel, and, what is more im- 
portant, the singularly steady, linear and horizon- 
tal direction united, which they sometimes as- 
sume, so far different from that intricacy which 
was formerly pointed out. And here it is pecu- 
liarly worthy of regard, that while this steadiness 
. of parallel flow is much greater at sea than on 



326 



PROPAGATION OF 



shore, so is the east wind that one which is parti- 
cularly steady and uniform in its current, and 
most of all in those seasons in which it blows 
continuously for a long period ; the very fact in 
the case of the east winds of spring. Under such 
circumstances, though there were no facts to prove 
it, I cannot see why Malaria should not be conveyed 
in a moist east wind, to distances even far greater 
than that between Holland and England, and 
without such a dispersion as to destroy its powers : 
as, in the same circumstances, such dispersible 
substances as swarms of insects are even brought 
over in solid columns, and not unfrequently in 
narrow ones. 

Let me make yet one remark of a meteorolo- 
gical nature which may throw some additional 
probability on this view, even though the fact it- 
self should be more rare than I believe it to be. 
In a very different work from this, (on the High- 
lands of Scotland) I have shew^n that a current of 
wind will sometimes be found, blowing for a con- 
siderable time, with great steadiness and rapidity, 
in a straight linear direction ; occupying an unde- 
fined and undiscoverable space longitudinally, yet 
not exceeding a mile or two in breadth, while ac- 
curately separated on both sides from a calm or 
still atmosphere, or producing there nothing at 



MALARIA. 



327 



least but that narrow eddy which is an inevitable 
consequence of such a state of things. And I 
have, in the same place, further shown, that two 
such currents will thus blow, of similar dimen- 
sions and rapidity, in directions exactly the re- 
verse of each other, and also in contact, or as 
nearly so at least as that can be proved by the 
manoeuvres of vessels under these circumstances. 
And lastly, I have there shown that such currents 
will even cross each other s courses, as apparently 
unimpeded, or undisturbed, as this can be proved 
by the same mode of investigation. 

The conclusion from these facts, as to the ques- 
tion before us, is not unimportant. It is plain 
that in all these cases, each successively rising in 
value of proof, a mass of air in motion possesses 
some principle of integrity, self attraction, or re- 
sistance to the surrounding fluid or forces, whe- 
ther chemical or mechanical, capable of prevent- 
ing its dispersion, or its solution in, or mixture 
with, the surrounding atmosphere, even amid the 
most apparently disturbing causes. It is like the 
case of a cloud, which thus travels through many 
miles of atmosphere, even when extremely mi- 
nute, and when surrounded also by other clouds, 
without either mixing with them, or losing itself 
among them, 6y in that air which, under some 



/ 



328 



PROPAGATION OF 



Other condition, becomes its rapid solvent. Tin's 
being so, we can scarcely avoid supposing, that in 
the case of the wind or of the cloud, or, whether 
the water contained in the stream of air is invisi- 
ble or visible, any given portion of that wind Avill 
keep its relative place as to the rest, during its 
flow, just as the cloud preserves its place, with its 
integrity, in the stream by which it is conveyed : 
or that such portion will arrive at its destination 
as independent or entire a body as it arose, and 
consequently, that the same will be true of the 
whole current. 

The practical conclusion as to the question 
under review, is obvious : and it is, that should 
such a current contain Malaria, having arisen in 
a soil capable of generating it, or having passed 
such lands in its course, it may carry, and can 
indeed scarcely fail to transport, that substance 
to the most distant point which it is destined to 
reach ; since at any point of its whole journey, 
it is precisely the same air and the same body of 
air, in the whole and in all its parts, as it was at 
any other point. Coming from Holland there- 
fore, any part of such a current should produce 
the same effects on him who may be exposed to 
it, as if he had met with it in its native marshes ; 
just as it would have been the same whether he 



MALARIA. 



329 



had breathed the cloud whose motions he has 
traced through miles of air^ on the mountain 
where he stands or on that where it Avas first 
formed. As a further ilhistration of this, I shall 
only add, that as it is probably to similar narrow 
and parallel currents that we must often ascribe 
the narrow columnar flights of migrating insects 
just noticed, so this seems to show a similar state 
of interior integrity or steady relativeness of 
place among the parts of such a stream. 

I need not pursue this particular subject fur- 
ther, and I will gladly leave it, even to the con- 
troversy that it will probably excite ; indifferent 
to its standing or falling, provided the truth, 
whatever that may prove, is elicited. There is 
nothing but truth in this world which deserves the 
pursuit of a wise man : and to him, attain it who 
may, it is equally valuable. 

But I must yet answer an objection ; which I 
bring forward myself, lest it should be overlooked 
by others. If the east winds of spring bring in- 
termittents from Holland, why do they not bring 
remittents in autumn ? The answer does not 
appear very diflficult ; while, if I have already 
been compelled to anticipate it, I must place it 
here in contact with tlic objection. 

It is a common opinion th^t the cast wind is 



330 



PROPAGATION OF 



always of the same quality; always equally inju- 
rious or disagreeable, always moist and harsh. It 
is even a proverbial error, and an error of a wide 
nature ; since it is maintained, that, all over the 
world, in all places, and in all seasons, it is suffi- 
cient for the wind to be east to be always of the 
same quality ; always disagreeable and always in- 
jurious. Such, in a thousand other cases than 
that of the east wind, is the sweeping nature of 
popular and ancient dogmas. And yet it is not 
a vulgar dogma; since it has been stated ex cathe- 
dra by professors of natural history, since it has 
been asserted by meteorologists of the highest 
name, and has even been held out as a problem 
for solution. It would have been well to have 
ascertained the fact first; as has proverbially been 
said of many others. It is like the wind that must 
change with the moon, the storm that must fol- 
low a red sun-set or a halo ; one of the endless 
superstitions by which the world is governed, not 
only in physics, but in morals and politics. It is 
the balance of trade; and, like the balance of 
trade, the wisdom of our ancestors w ill some day 
become the jest of their posterity. 

In summer and hot w^eather, the east wind is 
often as notoriously dry, as it is moist in spring 
and in wet seasons. It is the driest of Avinds; it is 



MALARIA. 



331 



even, as I have just said, the Harmattaii of Africa. 
It is the wind which, with us, attends, produces, 
the burning heats of our burning summers ; as it 
is the very cause of the extreme power of the sun, 
from the facility with which, owing to its free- 
dom from water, it transmits Hght or heat. It 
would be singular indeed, if winds of such oppo- 
site properties as the east winds of March and 
those of July, should have the same effects and 
produce the same sensations, because, in both 
cases, the direction happens to be towards the 
west. We must leave this philosophy to the 
vulgar, to whom ft belongs: the point which I 
am to prove is, that the conducting power as to 
Malaria, of a summer east ^vind, cannot be the 
same as that of a spring or a winter one, because 
they are different chemical substances ; and hence 
it is explained why the remittent does not travel 
like the intermittent, or why Holland cannot 
transport to us its Walcheren in August, as it 
sends us the agues of its ditches in spring. 

Enough of this subject : but I must hazard ano- 
ther remark on the east wind, though it is rather 
of a medical than of a purely physical nature ; 
while it is not such as to have properly found a 
place in the second part of this eSsay. 

The east wind is a popular grievance ; every 



332 



PROPAGATION OF 



one suffers, or thinks that he suffers^ from it ; for 
it is sufficient if some can talk where others feel. 
Imagination is worth a great deal in all such 
cases. Every one indeed may feel its dampness 
and its cold, and its cutting asperity ; and there 
are some who may really suffer more deeply in 
their general feelings as to health or common 
enjoyment, from this cause. So may it produce 
real diseases ; for the application and the conti- 
nuance of cold and moisture, particularly under 
the act of perpetual renovation, are not innocent. 

On these, it is not here my business or design 
to dwell. But there is somewhat more behind ; 
indefineable or undefined sufferings, too often the 
subjects of ridicule or doubt to those who have 
not experienced them, sufficiently serious to the 
unfortunate who are their victims. The sup- 
posed nervous and the supposed hypochondriacal 
are here among the chief sufferers ; and long as 
these have been the jest of prose and poetry alike, 
the jest of rude health and selfishness and igno- 
rance, who shall dare attempt to claim some 
compassion for them, or to prove that they are 
sufferers in the body and not in the spirit alone ? 
even were this last a fit subject of jesting. 

I am not going to deny that the common and 
obvious properties of the raw east wind may 



MALARIA. 



333 



painfully affect constitutions of the description 
now mentioned ; but what I do mean to say, and 
what I hope to demon state more fully in the se- 
cond part of this essay, is, that in many of these 
cases, the real effect produced by the east wind 
is the renewal of a chronic disease, which, in its 
fundamental properties^ as often, most demon- 
strably, in its origin, is an intermittent. And while 
I hope to prove that there also is a common mo- 
dification of this disease, even as an original one, 
too slight and undecided in its form and recur- 
rence to attract the attention of patients as a fix- 
ed and serious disorder, far less that of physicians, 
and while also I believe; that the latter have most 
culpably overlooked or mistaken its nature, it is 
this common disorder which I believe to be the 
chief source of the very marked, and also very 
common suffering produced by the east wind. 
In plain language, its effect is to produce a fit of 
ague, or a continuance of that vexatious disease ; 
and, in a thousand instances, when it is not at all 
suspected, and where also, very often, the patient 
is accused of hypochondriasis, nervous feelings, 
or feebleness of mind. 

Were I inclined to extend these remarks fur- 
ther, to the whole of the popular fancies respect- 
ing the east wind, this would not be a fit place 



334 



PROPAGATION OF 



for the inquiry ; nor do I feel any desire to enter 
the lists further against common opinions, sen- 
sihle that I have already brought a host to the 
encounter. 

Yet if the east wind is equally pernicious all 
over the world, as is the popular theory, and as 
is even seriously asserted by philosophers, even 
to the very w^ords, let it be explained, first, what 
is the common principle which unites all east 
winds, and which can possibly act on the body as 
a common cause, when it is so easily proved that, 
' independently of any supposed Malaria contained 
in it, all its obvious conditions, heat, cold, mois- 
ture, dryness, are everywhere variable, and every- 
where dilFerent. It is not any mystery or charm 
comprised in the term east that can act on the 
human body. And in matters of fact, is the east 
wind that traverses frozen Siberia the same east 
wind that sweeps the burning sands of Africa, 
or is this latter the east wind loaded with the 
produce of American swamps ? Is the trade wind 
of the wide ocean the east wind of March in 
Lincolnshire ? is it not, on the contrary, as in- 
noxious as the west winds of the Atlantic in 
England ? It is the very salutary sea breeze itself 
of the burning islands of Western America. 
In many parts of the continent of Europe, in 



MALARIA. 



335 



France, in German in Poland, in Russia, the 
east wind is often perfectly inoiFensive ; it is 
neither spoken of nor thought of, and for reasons 
not generally difficult to assign. If in the latter, 
Petersburgh is a noted exception, there must be 
causes, and very probably consisting of some pe- 
culiar direction in the course of the wind, which 
have not been investigated. In Sardinia again, its 
effects are such as to render that side of the 
island which is exposed to it a desert, while a 
vigorous vegetation flourishes beyond the range 
of mountains which divides this country : and 
thus also, in Minorca, it will not suffer an orange 
tree to protrude a leaf beyond the shelter of a 
garden wall. These, and hundreds of similar 
occurrences, confirm the fact that its effects, on 
vegetation as on animals, depend on the ground 
which it has traversed, and very materially on 
what it has crossed last : on its acquired qualities 
as compared to the west wind, or else on its 
comparative force. If, in one country or on one 
coast, it is the east v/ind that burns and checks 
vegetation, on another it is the west ; and thus, 
even in our own island, to select two purely local 
and limited examples only, out of far more, it is 
before the east wind that Mount Edgcumbe roots 
its splendid trees even in the sea, not daring to 



/ 



336 



FROPAGATrpN OF MALARIA. 



show a leaf to the western ones ; while in South- 
ampton river, it is precisely the revej'se, and while 
the contrast produced by the proximity of a vi- 
gorous and a stunted vegetation, on immediately 
opposed shores, is here most striking. 

The popular philosophy requires to be review- 
ed, and not only so, but to be abandoned. The 
east wind may be poisonous where it carries Ma- 
laria ; it is a cruel and bitter wintry wind across 
Siberia, and it is raw and harsh as it travels a 
land of cold swamps or a frozen ocean ; while it 
is burning and dry in the Sahara, and even iu 
our own English July. This is the east wind ; 
it has bad properties when it blows under evil 
circumstances ; and the worst of all these, as it 
is the apparent cause of its ill reputation is, that, 
to us, and to others also, it is the best vehicle of 
the ague. 



337 



CHAPTER VIII. 

the seasons and climates peculiarly favourable 
to the production and propagation^ or to the 
effects^ of Malaria, 

As it is a well known fact that remittent and in- 
termittent fevers are more or less severe in dif- 
ferent climates, and in different seasons in any 
one country, it must be concluded that the pro- 
duction of Malaria is modified by differences of 
temperature, or else that its effect in producing 
those diseases is thus modified. Either of these 
two may be the truth ; or else the result may be 
compounded of both ; so that in this case, unfor- 
tunately, as in many others in physic, among 
conflicting circumstances, we cannot always hope 
to discover exactly what the fact is. And as we 
can judge but by the effects, it is not safe to speak, 
except with some reservations, as to the effect of 
season, or heat, in the production of Malaria. 
The effect of heat on the body, simply as such, 
is supposed to be to produce disease, or a dispo- 
sition to disease : and that of long continued 
heat is thought to be to affect the biliary system 



338 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

in some manner^ so as to excite an increased or 
a morbid secretion^ the source^ among other 
things^ of cholera. Hence we can conceive that 
if Malaria is applied to a system thus prepared 
for disease^ the result may be fever, or dysentery, 
and that the eiFects may be severe in proportion 
to the previous preparation or susceptibility. 
Thus, that extent and severity of disease which 
might seem the consequence of an increased or 
unusual quantity and virulence of Malaria, may 
depend on nothing more than the unusual condi- 
tion, both in numbers and susceptibility, of the 
subjects to which it is applied. 

But, on the other hand, since it is ascertained 
that a certain state of vegetation or vegetable 
decomposition is the source of Malaria, and that 
this process requires heat and is suspended by 
cold, we are entitled to argue that as heat does 
produce, in its gradual increase, a corresponding 
rapidity or profusion of vegetable growth and 
decomposition, so ought it to generate a corres- 
ponding proportion of Malaria, proportional 
also, it must be supposed in activity. But fur- 
ther, while it remains to be proved that the in- 
fluence described in the foregoing paragraph is a 
real and efficient one in this case, I may continue 
to remark that the effect of cold is to produce. 



AS TO MALARIA. 



339 



like that of heat, a predisposition to diseases; 
but of a far different nature, since these consist 
in active inflammations. This i§ the predisposi- 
tion of spring ; as biHary disease is that of au- 
tumn, or is supposed to be so. The cold of win- 
ter cannot therefore be esteemed a predisposing 
cause for the fevers of Malaria which occur in 
spring, though it may so modify the action of 
the poison as to cause it to produce what it does 
generate ; simple intermittent, and not bilious or 
common remittent. Or, the variations of the 
temperature of spring can have no effect, as 
modes of heat, in predisposing to any modifica- 
tion of fever ; so that whatever diversities then 
take place in the quality of the disease, must be 
the result of differences in the poison itself. And ^ 
therefore, if the fever of Malaria is, in any one 
spring, more abundant and severe than in an- 
other, it is probable that the cause consists in a 
varying generation of that substance ; in a dif- 
ference in quantity, duration, extent, or activity. 

And the same analogy may consequently be 
extended to the fever of autumn. There is ac- 
tually more of the poison produced; and the 
quality of that may be worse, because vegetation 
and decomposition are more active. There are 
< other phenomena also, noticed, partly in this es- 

z 2 



340 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASONS 

saj;, partly in the medical portion of this work, 
which prove^ that, abstractedly from all effect of 
climate, the severity or quality of the resulting 
diseases is proportioned to what we must consider 
the production of Malaria. Of these, is the case 
of sugar ships, that of hemp, and that of certain 
fortified places, such as Havre ; and of such is 
the case of the Pontine marshes, of Bresse, or of 
Forez. In some of these, the climate and its 
effects must pass for nothing ; because the pecu- ^ 
liarly severe consequences occur at all times alike ; 
early in the year, or late ; or at sea, where the 
climate cannot be reckoned ; while in the others, 
and in a thousand similar cases in France and 
Italy, the climate and its effects are the same to 
the inhabitants over considerable tracts of coun- 
try, but the peculiar severity and character of 
disease, single or epidemic, are confined to chosen 
spots, and those spots the very ones which we 
should judge, from their very characters, suited 
to produce an especially abundant or virulent 
Malaria. 

I might easily extend this class of proofs ; all 
leading to the inference that variations of the 
poison produce variations of the consequent 
fevers ; while nothing can be stronger in this 
view, than those ca/ses where the epidemic has 



AS TO MALARIA. 



341 



been the consequence of propagation rather than 
production ; the result of peculiar winds, or of 
the removal of trees ; and where, the climate 
continuing the same, the results have differed, 
and, as is the fact, most seriously. It is therefore 
proved that every change of character, or every 
effect as to fever, epidemic or otherwise, is or 
may be independent of predisposition ; while I 
know not that there is a smgle fact to prove the 
reverse. If there has been a hot season, or a moist 
one, which might be supposed apredisposing cause, 
we know that either of these alters the production 
of Malaria ; but it has never been proved that 
such events affect the body as predisposing causes, 
far less as the real causes of such fevers. It is 
so assumed by physicians ;^and therefore, as is 
usual in physic, it is supposed to be proved, and 
becomes a dogma. But even granting this to be 
true to a certain extent, it must be ^considered a 
fact established, that the variations in fevers or 
periods of fevers, depend principally, or entirely, 
on variations of season as regulating the produc- 
tion of Malaria ; while we do not require an- 
other cause, if this is adequate to all the effects. 

Whatever may be the influence of heat on the 
body in modifying the characters of these disor- 
ders, it is an inquiry for the medical part of this 



342 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 



work^ and I may therefore proceed to observe, 
that as this is a question of temperature chiefly, 
it applies equally to climate and to season ; and 
consequently, that an unusually hot season will, 
in our own country or in any other, he attended 
by an increase of Malaria, just as this poison is 
most destructive in the hottest climates ; while 
it is amply confirmed by observation, that the 
precedence of a very hot summer is always fol- 
lowed, in autumn, and in every country, by an 
increase of the diseases produced by Malaria. 
Nor is it less familiar that intermittent is more 
prevalent in some years than in others; while 
there occur also sequences of years in which it 
abounds, to subside again for other similar inter- 
vals : these effects being independent of that in- 
crease or diminution which arises from changes 
in the soils of a given country, whether these 
have been meliorated by drainage, or deteriorated 
from opposite causes. 

Now, while it is in spring especially that inter- 
mittents are produced, as the remittent is the 
produce of autumn chiefly, there are no observa- 
tions of any value, whence we can deduce the 
nature of the present or previous season in which 
intermittent fever abounds in an unusual degree, 
however we may explain this fact as to remittents. 



AS TO MALARIA. 



343 



I allude here to the production^ not to the trans- 
portation^ of Malaria^ because this latter cause 
of the diseases arising from this poison must al- 
ways he local ; as it is^ for example^ with respect 
to London^ for the reasons assigned in the last 
chapter. Thus^, although our seasons of inter- 
mittent are always seasons of east wind^ this is 
a partial consequence ; since^ from analogous 
causes^ the unhealthy season of Flanders is a 
season of southerly winds. 

The observations of Sydenham and others are 
of no value on this point; but it may be conjec- 
tured that a mild winter, in which vegetation is 
not absolutely checked, ought to be succeeded 
by an unusual produce of this poison, and of in- 
termittent ; while the same results will probably 
follow from the sudden accession of a hot spring, 
attended by, or following, much moisture, and 
exciting an active and rapid vegetation. But be 
the particular actions what they may, it rarely 
happens in our own country, nor generally 
throughout Europe, where simple or original in- 
termittent prevails, that it is produced in the 
quotidian or tertian forms at least, and as a new 
disease in a healthy subject, before the month of 
March, nor after the end of May ; while this also 
is the period in which it is most easily re-excited 



344 EFFECTS OF GLIMATE AND SEASON 

in those with whom it is a habit^ and in whom it 
may have become for a time dormant. That 
quartans are often produced in autumn^ is one of 
those unexplained circumstances belonging to 
these singular disorders which here forms a species 
of exception. 

With respect to remittents as connected with 
season, the grounds of judgment are somewhat 
different in appearance, though the principles 
are the same. Yet I must compress a part of 
the subject which in itself has occupied volumes. 
When, in one hand alone^ the mere Malaria of 
Italy fills four large ones, to say nothing of a 
hundred other works, he who has but one for 
every thing, must be excused the brevity to which, 
on any particular subject, he is condemned. 

The heat of a season or climate being admitted 
as the fundamental circumstance in producing 
and regulating the production of Malaria, it 
must be expected that, in any given country, 
fevers will be most numerous and severe as the 
summer heat has been most considerable and 
most long continued. But with this also, other 
circumstances combine to determine peculiar ef- 
fects ; and of these, one of the most common is, 
an autumnal reason of rain following upon long- 
continued heat, the same state of things preceding 



AS TO MALARIA. 



345 



it, or even the occurrence of alternations of rain 
with heat, or strong and sudden contrasts of heat 
with cold ; the former causes appearing to act 
solely on the production of the Malaria, while 
the last may possibly act as a secondary cause on 
the body itself, or on the people. It has also 
been observed, and too often to admit of any 
doubt as to the truth of the remark, that if an 
entire rainy summer has been succeeded by a hot 
one, that summer is a peculiarly unhealthy one, 
or becomes an epidemic season ; the effect being 
similar to what happens from a rainy autumn 
succeeding a hot summer. And the solution of 
all these cases is sufficiently obvious ; while it is 
easy also to see the analogy which they bear to 
the case of Africa, or of the tropical climates 
subjected to distinct seasons of rain, as formerly 
explained. 

Such being the circumstances, a country like 
ours, which is but partially subject to fevers, may 
suffer to a greater extent, or disease may be pro- 
duced where it had not formely appeared ; or else, 
in certain parts, that slight endemic by which, for 
example, Lincolnshire or Essex is characterized 
may become an epidemic, andto us, a severe one, if 
slender as compared to Italy or France. And such 
has been the fact very generally in this present 



346 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

year; numerous villages in Lincolnshire^ Essex, 
Sussex, Kent, and indeed almost everywhere, in 
which the autumn used formerly to pass over with 
a few insulated cases of fever, having been ravaged 
by epidemics which might well compare with 
those of many parts of France and Italy. And 
in the same manner, those fevers have appeared 
where they were formerly unknown, and even 
their possibility unsuspected ; a fact which, in 
many places, seems to have excited considerable 
surprise, especially among those who had resorted 
to them as formerly, to seek for health. That 
all these have been cases of marsh fever, and not 
of typhus, as commonly supposed, is incontest- 
able : while, proving that England is really ex- 
posed to Malaria very widely, an examination of 
these places so as to ascertain the exact cause, 
might become useful to those who are as yet ig- 
norant of the nature of pernicious soils ; as it 
might also convince the incredulous, of the hazards 
arising from a rivulet, a meadow, a horse pond, a 
trim canal, a coppice, or a gravel pit. 

Thus also while, in ordinary seasons, such dis- 
eases are never wanting in the countries pecu- 
liarly subject to Malaria, constituting the endemic 
fevers of their insalubrious districts, that endemic 
becomes an epidemic in such peculiar cases ; 



AS TO MALARIA. 



347 



forming those noted periods of mortality, of which 
so many have been recorded by authors, in vari- 
ous countries, both in ancient and modern times. 
I could not here pretend to enumerate these, num- 
berless as they are ; while, for particular pur- 
poses, I have elsewhere been obliged to point out 
a few cases : but, in as far as our own country is 
now capable of producing such epidemics, if the 
present year, 1826, and indeed the two preced- 
ing, are examples, as they are proofs of the cause, 
the state of Middleburgh in the present season, 
in a far other region, shows how a condition, in 
all cases sufficiently bad, may be aggravated by 
the precession and presence of an unusually hot 
summer. 

On all this let me make one general remark. 
I have named Sydenham, and I desire to except 
him, as, in addition to his long established fame, 
his age was not one in which any great accuracy 
on such points could have been expected. But 
when we look at the medical reports of seasons 
as connected with the production of diseases, we 
find little or nothing but collections of loose ob- 
servations, on winds, temperature, barometrical 
oscillations, rain, and whatever else, drawn per- 
haps into some vague parallel with the diseases 
of the same periods or years, but unclassified, un- 



348 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 



arranged, and unallotted. There is no reference 
to the general principles on which these ought, or 
might be supposed to act ; and if the atmospheric 
phenomena are confounded in an indiscriminate 
mass, so are the diseases. We must work our 
way as best we can through inflammations, re- 
mittent fevers, contagious diseases, and much 
more, if indeed that can be done at all; while, 
had any classification of phenomena, and any dis- 
tinctions in the characters of diseases been made, 
some useful knowledge, or something or other 
of fact might possibly have been acquired, whereas 
the whole is now an useless chaos. It is the 
random chemist who mixes every substance or 
test which he possesses, with the body to be ex- 
amined, imagines that he has performed wonder- 
ful things, and leaves us, out of fifty idle experi- 
ments, to discover for ourselves, as we best can, 
what it is which bears on the question. Let us 
hope that some system, some accuracy of ar- 
rangement as well as of observation, will in time 
be adopted, and we may then expect to see whe- 
ther at least any valuable information as to dis- 
ease will be derived from these statistical records. 

But other circumstances besides mere heat, or 
moisture, or vacillations of temperature, are often 
concerned in such cases ; conspiring often with 



AS TO MALARIA. 



349 



them^ so as to produce epidemic seasons of pecu- 
liar severity, or otherwise modifying their effects 
in various ways. Respecting what belongs to the 
actual production or the propagation of Malaria, 
these particulars have been noticed in the former 
chapters ; while it will suffice here, barely to re- 
mind the reader of them, in pointing out such 
facts as the long prevalence of an east wind in 
England, of a south-west in Flanders, and of a 
Scirocco in various parts of Italy ; casual changes 
of the state of the soil, from inundations, earth- 
quakes, breaches of the sea, or whatever else, 
and artificial operations of an analogous nature ; 
to omit other collateral agencies which it would 
be superfluous to name again. 

Besides these, a very few remarks of another 
nature will be sufficient as to what remains. 
Among such causes, a bad harvest, implying defi- 
ciency of food, or , famine, is one, of no small 
note ; the mode in which it acts being sufficiently 
obvious. Political circumstances acting on the 
minds of the people, is another, the destructive 
influence of which in many instances, can be 
traced in history : and where, as in the case of 
war under peculiar circumstances, these causes 
are united, often including also other evil in- 
fluences too obvious to require mention, acting 



350 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

on tlie minds and bodies both, of the people, the 
consequences have been conspicuous in every age 
and country. To say through what details a 
country which is the seat of war is thus afflicted, 
or in what pecuhar modes the armies themselves 
are exposed to causes aggravating the power of 
Malaria, would be to describe what a moment's 
consideration will suggest to every one. 

As examples of such epidemic seasons, I may 
name the year 1691 in Holland ; the pestilence, 
as it may be called, having been generated by the 
unusual heat of the summer, or by a more eifec- 
tual vegetable decomposition : a case parallel, 
though in a far higher degree, to that of the pre- 
sent year 1826, already noticed. At Venice, 
1535 was a remarkable season of epidemics, com- 
paratively healthy as that city is, when its situa- 
tion is considered ; and such was the case at Co- 
penhagen in 1652: the immediate cause, in both 
instances, having been the exposure and drying 
of land and mud which had generally been sub- 
merged. In 1707, Bagnaria in Tuscany expe- 
rienced the same fate from the drying up of the 
canals •; and according to Lanzoni, the great epi- 
demic of Ferrara in 1728, was the produce of un- 
usual autumnal rains in the preceding year, fol- 
lowed by a hot summer; In Normandy, at Ber- 



AS TO MALARIA. 351 

nieres, an unusual course of south-west winds, 
blowing across the marshes and conspiring with 
a hot summer, caused the epidemics of 1809 and 
1811: and, to cut short these examples, I may 
conclude ^by simply naming the noted epidemic 
of Naples in 1805, prevailing chiefly at Ercola, 
that of Narbonne in 1801, and that of Pethivier 
in 1802, arising from different x;auses of the same 
nature. Of epidemic seasons following war, his 
tory, both ancient and modern, is full ; and I may 
barely remind my readers of them ; while the 
explanations now furnished will render those facts 
more interesting than they probably had been on 
a cursory view. 

Some of the former considerations will explain 
the cases of noted epidemics when the character 
consists merely in an aggravation of the simple 
fever, and in a wider influence : but when, in such 
cases^ the character of the epidemic is also pecu- 
liar, other collateral causes will be found to have 
acted. But not to enter into superfluous details, 
it will be apparent to medical readers, how a pre- 
viously cold season followed by a hot one, may 
modify such fevers to an inflammatory tendency, 
and how similar effects may take place from the 
occurrence of cold winds or rains during such a 
season, or in the midst of such an epidemic state 



352 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

of disease. Hence, and from other caiises^some 
of which are familiar, while others are still ob- 
scure, the characters of such epidemics vary in 
diiferent seasons and in different places ; while, 
barely to enumerate such recorded varieties, would 
not only be a tedious task, but is one which be- 
longs rather to the proper history of the diseases 
themselves, than to the subject in hand, or to the 
history of Malaria. 

If I have noticed the general period of com- 
mencement for intermittent among ourselves, I 
may also now point out what relates to that of 
remittent or summer fever. The beginning 
of this may generally be dated from the middle 
or end of August, rarely as early as the end of 
July ; while it may be esteemed to terminate, as 
far as new attacks are concerned, before the mid- 
dle or end of October. Thus the two months of 
middle summer and the four of middle winter are 
not only the freest from original attacks of the 
diseases of Malaria, but may, in this respect, be 
esteemed the healthiest portions of the year ; this 
being further true, of the summer period, for all 
diseases. 

All this however must be taken with great ex- 
ceptions for particular seasons and particular si- 
tuations. Thus, ill the present summer, 1826, 



AS TO MALARIA. 



353 



the remittent has appeared as early as the end of 
June ; while in some extensive^ and at the same 
time unhealthy, districts, such as Essex, for ex- 
ample, not only has it been severe, but has in 
some summers, and even very recently, com- 
menced with the spring or the beginning of 
summer, as it does in parts of Italy, so as to oc- 
cupy what, with us, is usually a period of mere 
intermittents, and thus to extend even to the end 
of autumn. And thus also if, in the present and 
the late hot summers, it has been unusually early 
as well as epidemic in some particular spots, it 
will always be found that in those, and in every 
season, its commencement is earlier, and its du- 
ration longer, than in others where the causes 
productive of Malaria are less conspicuous or ex- 
tensive. And it is not less remarkable, that in 
the present season, many severe and original cases 
occurred as late as November, and even later, in 
particular spots ; an event which is rare, even in 
the more insalubrious parts of France and Italy. 

Other countries, as might be expected, are un- 
der the rule of periods somewhat different ; 
while if, in these, the season of Malaria is gene- 
rally of longer duration, in proportion to the 
heat of the climate, it sometimes also happens, as 
it does in the rare cases just noticed in our own^ 



354 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

that the vernal period of disease, or that which 
may be considered the proper season of inter- 
mittents, which, however, as vernal disorders, are 
comparatively rare in those climates, runs into 
the autumnal or remittent season, so as to leave 
no portion of the whole summer, even from 
March to November, free ; a fact which has oc- 
curred repeatedly in some of the peculiarly insa- 
lubrious districts of France. In Italy, as a general 
rule, the Malaria prevails from the solstice to the 
equinox ; but it very often also appears as early 
as May, while in the Pontine marshes, it conti- 
nues even to the end of October, or later ; the ef- 
fects being augmented by the rains of September 
and October. The same varying rules may be 
applied to France and Holland : but it is unne- 
cessary to protract this detail as to the several 
countries of the world ; since a mere knowledge 
of any specific climate and country is commonly 
sufficient as a ground of judgment, because the 
same general rules govern all places. 

I may as well however notice one supposed 
fact here, in addition, since I could not find a 
much more appropriate place for it. This is the 
influence of the moon, real or imaginary, in the 
production of Malaria, or of fevers ; since it does 
not seem to be well ascertained which is the real 



AS TO MALARIA. 



355 



fact. The evidences to be found in Jackson, 
Lind, and Balfour, but chiefly in the latter, seem 
difficult to doubt ; while if the effects depend on 
the increased production of Malaria, in the orien- 
tal regions where this circumstance particularly 
occurs, it has been explained by the higher state 
of the tides at the new and full moons, and by 
the consequent and subsequent exposure of a 
larger space of wet mud. But I must refer to 
those authors for such proofs and details as would 
here exceed the space which I can allow for facts 
of a doubtful nature and for disputed opinions. 

I must pass to the subject of mere climate; on 
which, if a volume might be written from the 
works of others, it would be a volume of little 
value, as a few simple principles will include all 
which the subject contains, of any interest. 

The basis of the whole question is indeed com- 
prised in the few leading facts which have been 
already laid down ; while season and climate are, 
in reality, as to this subject, almost interchange- 
able terms : so that by referring to them, it will 
always (with some yet unexplained exceptions) 
be easy to determine why any specific climate i$ 
productive of Malaria and its diseases, and also 
a priori, whether it is so or not. 

Marshy or swampy land, or a vegetation and 

A A 2 



356 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

subsequent decomposition taking place in a soil 
alternately wet and dry, or intermediate between 
moisture and dryness, is, as has been fully shown, 
the general or most common basis of the whole 
evil, if it is not the sole and exclusive source of the 
diseases in question : and it is indifferent under 
what precise circumstances or forms of soil and 
site this essential fact exists ; as the space or ex- 
tent seems equally indifferent, further than as 
relates to the extent or range of the evil. 

The next essential circumstance is, an active 
vegetation followed by a rapid decomposition; 
and as this is always proportioned to the tem- 
perature, directly, moisture being presumed to be 
necessarily present, it is thence easy to compute, 
with sufficient precision for this view, where we 
are to expect Malaria and its diseases. Hence 
the latitude alone proves nothing ; since, in ele- 
vated intertropical situations, the tendency of 
vegetable death is, as in cold climates, to produce 
peat, as I formerly showed, rather than to fall 
into that more perfect decomposition which seems 
necessary to the generation of Malaria. 

I ought here also to notice one specific fact 
appertaining especially to the tropical climates, 
which is a very principal cause of their insalu- 
brity, or of their power in producing fevers ; 



AS TO MALARIA. 



357 



though it has necessarily already come under re- 
view as connected with the state of the soil^ and 
therefore requires mention now^ merely for the 
sake of order. This is that peculiar division of 
seasons which is marked by a decided interval of 
rain associated to one of entire dryness : the mon- 
soon of India^ the rainy season of Western Africa. 
How this acts^ I need not repeat : hut let it hap- 
pen where it may, it Avill always indicate an un- 
healthy region, on which we may calculate with- 
out fear of error. And in as far as it is a question 
of season as to such climates, it is one on which 
there is no ignorance, at least among the natives 
of such countries : if war and colonization have, 
not always conducted themselves under such cir- 
cumstances, with all the prudence and all the 
appearance of knowledge that might have been 
wished. 

If, in intertropical climates, a moist atmosphere, 
or that hot fog, if I may use such a term, so 
noted in some parts of Africa, is peculiarly fa- 
vourable to the production of the diseases of Ma- 
laria, the cause may partly consist in the greater 
activity, both of vegetation and decomposition, 
partly in a conducting, or perhaps a chemical 
power in such an atmosphere, peculiarly suited to 
the action of the poison, or in a greater facility of 



35S EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

propagation ; and partly also, it is possible, in the 
pernicious influence which such an atmosphere 
exerts on the body: rendering it susceptible of 
this poison, or ill fitted to resist it, or else pre- 
pared to suiFer seriously from the diseases which 
it produces. 

It is not easy to avoid making a remark here, 
in which humanity at least is concerned, and in 
which it is difficult to conceive that justice and 
sound policy do not unite with humanity; 
though for a remark of this nature in such a 
work, I must both apologize, and submit to such 
criticism as may accrue. As a question of state 
policy, I am fully aware of the difficulties and the 
objections ; and not unaware also what side, un- 
der a sentimental philanthropy, certain advocates 
of humanity are likely to take. 

To men of ordinary reasoning powers and plain 
sense, (being those from whom I have borrowed 
this remark), it appears extraordinary that our 
tropical African colonization should be carried on 
by innocent and honest subjects, while the finest 
and healthiest climates in our possession are set 
apart for the guilty, and allotted as the means of 
punishment. If it be true, as is asserted, that for 
every negro gained to our new African civiliza- 
tion, an European life is paid, the purchase is 



AS TO MALARIA. 



359 



made on terms sufficiently severe : but putting 
this out of the question, the naval officers who 
have been employed in this service, cannot see 
without regret, the loss of valuable men which 
has arisen from the business of cutting wood on 
these pestiferous shores, while reflecting also that 
such work might be performed by men of a far dif- 
ferent value, and who have forfeited their lives to 
the community. Needs it be said that hundreds 
of efficient seamen, or of innocent men, have been 
sacrificed on duties which, even to their own 
conviction, almost imply a sentence of death, and 
on duties that might be performed by persons of 
infinitely less value to society, of even far less pe- 
cuniary value to the state ; as they might be by 
men on whom society and the state alike hold 
claims, in return for the indulgence which they 
have received from justice. 

It is not easy to see what reasonable blame 
could attach to our criminal law, if the forfeit of 
life were commuted into a sentence of labour on 
the African coast, instead of transportation to 
New Holland, at least in specific cases ; and if 
the duties in question must be executed, there can 
surely be no hesitation respecting the compara- 
tive justice, any more than the humanity, as these 
are now carried on ; since it is in vain to say, as 



360 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

lias been said^ that a seaman is a free agent in this 
case^ when he cannot decHne obedience to his 
orders^ though orders of peace and not of war. 
Though he has entered freely, and has calculated 
on many labours and hazards^ he has not calcu- 
lated on sickness and fevers beyond the ordinary 
average of human events ; nor foreseen that it 
Would be his lot to labour in African swamps 
with an inglorious death before his eyes^ too often 
to lose his life for a cask of water oi' a bundle of 
wood. 

Yet thus much, forming the ordinary service of 
ships, is perhaps unavoidable ; and must be en- 
dured. But the cutting of wood for other service 
than the immediate wants of the ship, is not in 
the course of duty ; and the question is, whether 
it should be allotted to innocent and valuable 
men, either in a view of economy or of humanity. 
It is not my opinion however, but it is that of the 
officers whom I quote, that this is a duty which 
might be performed by convicts, easily and ad- 
vantageously. That there is a modern philan- 
thropy which would raise its voice against such 
an attempt, is probable : yet the , work must be 
executed by some one ; and the naval commander 
who feels that he is condemning to death those 
who have accompanied him before the dangers of 



AS TO MALARIA. 



the sea and the enemy^ by the order which com- 
mands a boat on shore to cut timber in an African 
swamp, will not be convinced that the present 
policy is either humane, or just, or expedient ; 
however unable an individual may be to offer the 
remonstrances which some of the most respected 
of this class have here requested me to make for 
them. 

Further, and to proceed to our proper subjects, 
there may be many local causes in such, as in all 
climates, capable of aggravating^ or determining 
the action of this poison ; such as a confined val- 
ley unfavourable to ventilation, or woods simi- 
larly concentrating its action, or forms in the 
land, or winds of a peculiar direction, fitted to 
carry its energies to some given point ; circum- 
stances which have been fully detailed in the last 
chapter, and w^hich it now, can only be neces- 
sary to allude to in this place. 

But in reality, many of these circumstances are . 
in themselves peculiarly regulated by climate : or 
if a warm climate acts in the production of fevers, 
through its heat, its moisture, and its more rapid 
^ vegetation, so does it by means of the unusual 
multitude and density of its trees, by the peculiar 
combinations of these with its rivers or its es- 
tuaries, and by other circumstances of a local na- 



362 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

ture, \\^hich it cannot be necessary to recal to the 
minds of those who possess even the sHghtest 
geographical knowledge. 

On this subject in general, there is one remark 
worth making; although, as derived from the 
doctrine of final causes, it may not at the present 
day be very generally acceptable. It is one of 
the apparent laws of nature, that the habitable 
surface of the earth should be gradually extended 
by the action of causes which geology demon- 
strates ; while, from the same law, it follows that 
the new lands are, in a great ratio, more produc- 
tive than the old, on a comparison of areas ; with 
exceptions, of course, for which there is no room, 
as there is no necessity, in this place. These are 
the alluvial plains, constituting the most valuable 
and populous tracts on the surface of the globe : 
and their enormous extent can be estimated by 
every geographer, as geology demonstrates their 
certain and progressive increase. 

It would be abundantly easy for any geologist 
to point out, over the entire world, what new 
lands have been formed since the mountains first 
arose out of the w^aters ; though the computation 
would surprise those who have never considered 
this subject : as it would not be very difficult to 
foretel what is yet to happen in this respect; 

\ 



AS TO MALARIA. 



363 



where new lands are to be formed, and where 
and how the old are to increase, extending the 
habitable surface of the globe for future and in- 
creasing races of men : and with that also, pro- 
ducing lands a thousand times more fertile than 
those which Nature first formed, so as to aug- 
ment, not by simple addition, but in a ratio 
which may be considered geometrical, the powers 
of the earth in providing for the, unfortunately, 
still more rapid geometrical increase of po- 
pulation. 

Now in the hot climates in particular, from the 
extraordinary vigour of vegetation, as well as, in 
some measure, from the moral condition and ha- 
bits of the people, these tracts are productive of 
a population, even to excess and incumbrance ; 
and it is in these very lands, as if for the purpose 
of a constant check, that there have been im- 
planted the steady and ever-active seeds of dis- 
ease, operating as a perpetual relief to what 
would otherwise perhaps find no relief but in the 
greater misery of famine. If this evil also ope- 
rates when it is not similarly productive of good, 
it is no more than happens throughout the whole 
system of nature, where general laws have been 
established for the production of general effects. 

I might now proceed to a detailed statement of 



364 EFFECTS OF CLIMATE AND SEASON 

the climates in which Malaria and its diseases 
prevail most conspiciously ; but almost every en- 
lightened reader can here form such a one for 
himself ; and I could but repeat what, perhaps, 
every one can conjecture. It will be better to 
leave this subject to the reflections and researches 
of those who may be interested in it ; while it 
will be more advantageous to enumerate, as an 
illustration rather than a history of Malaria in its 
relations to climate and country, a few examples 
of what may be called its geography. 

I grieve to say that this must be very imperfect, 
as much perhaps from want of correct informa- 
tion as from want of space. I have already 
hinted that there is no work more wanted in me- 
dical statistics than a geography of Malaria ; a 
work which, in Europe at least, seems of pressing 
urgency, from the great increase of travelling, 
as well as of migrating residents abroad, and 
from the mass of misery, added also to a consi- 
derable mortality, which results from their igno- 
rance, not merely of this necessary geography, 
but of the simple fact itself, or of the leading 
principles by which the production of Malaria 
and its diseases is regulated. Everywhere in 
France and in Italy, we may find whole families 
suffering under diseases which are often incurable. 



AS TO MALARIA. 



^65 



produced by an incautious choice of residence, or 
returning home with ruined health, from the very 
lands where they went to seek both health and 
happiness ; objects of misery and suffering as 
long as life shall last. 

If there is not much written on this subject, 
there is however something ; and among what is 
recorded, I may point out an excellent statistical 
table of Malaria drawn up by Captain Smyth, 
for Sicily, extremely valuable if accurate, and 
apparently extremely accurate. And it is espe- 
cially valuable because of its details ; since, after 
all, these are what are required. To be wanting 
in these particulars^ is the fault of the Italian 
writers in general, as it is of the French ; since, 
from the whole united, we could not derive such 
a statement as that to which I have just alluded. 



366 



CHAPTER IX. 

On the Geography of Malaria. 

It must be plain that to detail the geography of 
Malaria for the whole world, would be little else 
than to write a general grammar of geography ; 
and that to do this, even for Europe alone, would 
be to produce no small work. What the nume- 
rous and voluminous writers of Italy have done 
for their own country merely, on this subject, 
will prove that I do not exaggerate on this mat- 
ter. My own sketch must necessarily be a very 
slender, and also a very confined one : and even 
indeed had I the space to make it larger, I should 
be unable to procure the requisite information, 
since it does not exist. 

Respecting the three great divisions of the 
globe, there is nothing whatever to be discovered 
beyond the most casual and dispersed notices, to 
be found, rather by good fortune than industry, 
in the writings of travellers : and with regard to 
Europe indeed, there is the same blank, with the 
exception of France and Italy : since even Hol- 
land has not chosen to inform us on this subject : 



GEOGRAPHY MALARIA. 



367 



deeming perhaps that the whole might be com- 
prised in one word. And though Italian writers 
abound on the subject of Malaria in all its rela- 
tions, they seem generally to exhaust themselves 
in speculations and theories rather than facts; or, 
if noticing sites and places, it is to discuss to 
weariness some spot so notorious as to demand 
no farther illustration, and to neglect those de- 
tails which are wanted for use, and which alone 
ought to form the plan of such a vrork. Thus 
also have I been disappointed in Monfalcon ; 
who, appearing as if he had intended to give us 
the entire geography of French Malaria, has 
confined himself to a few broad details on some 
chosen places ; leaving the far greater part of his 
subject untouched, and, as to any useful purpose, 
being commonly superficial, or more properly, 
general, in what he has described. 

It is impossible to write without materials; 
and I, therefore, can pretend but to give some 
very scattered notices on this subject, in wdiich, 
moreover, I must almost limit myself to Europe. 
I had indeed intended to suppress a chapter so 
extremely deficient and unsatisfactory as this 
must be : yet when I recollect that whatever I 
may point out will be a warning to travellers, at 
least as far as it extends, and when I also reflect, 



368 



iGEOGRAPHY OF 



that, by sucli a detail, I may perhaps at length 
convince our incredulous countrymen that there 
is such a thing as Malaria under blue skies and 
amid the perfume of orange flowers, I shall 
suffer it to take its chance ; while it may also, 
by its imperfection, stimulate others to produce 
something worthy of the subject. Let me only 
further add, in gratitude to a person without 
whose assistance I could not even have written 
what I have, that I am indebted to Captain Smyth 
for nearly the whole of that topographical infor- 
mation which relates to the shores of the Medi- 
terranean ; while they who may choose to ab- 
stract that portion, will see that it forms the 
greater part of the subsequent details. He is not 
a physician, it is true : yet if but one physician 
out of a thousand had observed as well, the en- 
tire geography of Malaria would not be now to 
write, and physic would be relieved from a heavy 
disgrace which it deservedly endures for this ne- 
glect. 

To commence with some general remarks, as 
they may be applied to those cases or countries 
where I have been unable to specify the exact 
/geographical sites. Malaria may be expected dur- 
ing the warm season, and particularly under the 
various circumstances of heat and moisture for- 



MALARIA. 



369 



merly discussed^ in every country in which the 
mean annual temperature is 45, or even less, 
much more certainly when that reaches to 50, 
and most indubitably when it exceeds that, in 
all such places or tracts as the following. 

In the warmer climates in particular, yet in all 
climates under exceptions or modifications, un- 
necessary perhaps to detail after what has been 
said, and which would be tedious, at any rate, to 
specify, it will be the produce of the great allu- 
vial districts which attend the large rivers of the 
world, such as the Oroonoko, the Euphrates, the 
Ganges, the Danube, the Congo, and so forth ; 
and in those cases therefore, it will occupy an 
extent which is easily assigned by a geographical 
eye, even on a well constructed map. This will 
be one leading guide as to a judgment respecting 
such places or tracts of land as I have not here 
specified, even in the countries which I have no- 
ticed ; as it will be for those quarters of the world 
which I have omitted ; but in similar climates or 
v/herever the temperature is sufficient, the same 
rule will hold good as to the smaller alluvial spaces 
attending rivers of less moment, or rivers of almost 
any dimensions ; and such are, in fact, the leading 
features of those pestiferous tracts which abound 
on the shores of the Mediterranean, 



B B 



370 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



Such portions of land^ bounding or skirting 
rivers^ to whatever extent, are however most per- 
nicious, whether situated inland, or on the sea 
shores, when they include marshes, whether fresh 
or salt, when they are subject to inundation, like 
the vallies of Cochinchina, Ava, and Egypt, when 
they contain wet woods or jungles, and above all, 
elephant and bamboo jungles, or when, on the sea 
line, protruding far beneath the influence of the 
tide, they give birth to mangrove and similar 
forests alternately occupied and deserted by the 
sea. 

This division of physical geography includes, 
in reality, the far larger portion, all over the 
world, of that local geography which is most 
noted for its pernicious qualities ; while excep- 
tions will be found in such open plains as many 
of those in South America; where, indepen- 
dently of a form of land less subject to a perni- 
cious moisture, or in which that is in a great 
measure exhausted by a peculiar vegetation, open, 
if luxuriant, and free of those close and thick 
woods which are so favourable to the production 
of this poison, there is not that peculiar alterna- 
tion of rain with heat, which, in Africa and Asia, 
appear to be no less aiding in the same effect. 

Next to this particular division of physical 



MALARIA. 



371 



geography, I may name those places or wide val- 
lies, abounding in many parts of the world, and 
very conspicuous in France, where large rivers 
do not exist, however alluvial they may often 
be, but where, from an imperfect drainage, water 
accumulates, so as to give rise, as in Hungary, in 
the Lyonnais, and elsewhere, to collections of 
lakes or pools, or to marshy and meadow land, or 
to wet woods. 

As the margins of lakes are sources of Ma- 
laria, the existence of such accumulations of 
water, constitutes another department of natural 
geography which takes no small share in this sub- 
ject ; while it is plain that the essential reasoning 
is the same as that which is applied to sea shores. 
Of such pestiferous tracts, the Italian lakes and 
those of America furnish noted examples on all 
scales ; while respecting the whole, it will be, in 
general, sufficient for any one to examine a good 
map, to deduce those conclusions which I could 
not here specify without occupying much more 
space than would be convenient. 

Such are the leading divisions in physical geo- 
graphy which may form our guides as to this 
judgment ; and any one who is acquainted with 
that great department of natural history, little 
attended to except by geologists and geographers, 

B B 2 



37'J 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



would find but little difficulty in constructing for 
himself a map of the Malaria of the world, as far 
as its natural geography is known. What else 
belongs to this subject in a general view, is com- 
monly too partial or accidental to admit of a 
place under this head ; nor need I now repeat 
all the modifications of land which, incapable of 
being thus classified, are sources of Malaria ; 
since the rules respecting these have been suffi- 
ciently indicated in a former chapter. 

But if I have mentioned a map of Malaria, I 
know of few statistical works which would now 
be more useful than such a one for the world at 
large ; as far at least as the civilized, and com- 
mercial or colonizing nations have extended their 
connections with it : while it indeed forms a 
branch of statistics and economy as to individual 
countries, which it is disgraceful to the European 
nations to Jiave so long neglected. It is, in 
reality, a department in political economy which 
it is incumbent on every government to investi- 
gate and make known ; deeply as it is invoK^d 
with many of the fundamental principles of state 
policy, as these relate to the public health and 
industry, and deeply also as it concerns the great 
question of war, colonization, and commerce. 
Executed for Europe alone, it would, as I have 



MALARIA. 



more than once suggested,, be invaluable to mere 
travellers ; and 1 can only regret that my infor- 
mation does not allow me to produce what indeed, 
even if executed^ could not have been appended 
to a work of this nature. Let me only hope that 
what I here hint may stimulate some of the phy- 
sicians^ who swarm all over Europe as residents 
and travellers^ to commence a task^ the neglect of 
which is to them in particular, disreputable : and 
if they wish for^ an example, let them follow the 
road so well marked out by Captain Smyth in his 
accounts of Sicily and Sardinia. Were there no 
other proofs of the utility of this knowledge, he 
would himself furnish an incontrovertible one ; 
since by this alone he preserved his own health 
and that of his people during the many years 
that he was engaged in the survey of the Medi- 
terranean ; occupied incessantly in places of the 
most pestiferous nature, and in every one of them ; 
as this sketch, in as far as it depends on his com- 
munications, will abundantly testify. 

To commence therefore with the sea coasts of 
Italy, since it is indifferent where I begin, if be- 
tween Nice and Pisa there arc occasionally in- 
terspersed some unhealthy spots, such as, near 
Vintimiglia, Oneglia, Albenga, Spezia, andMassa, 
it is not till we arrive at Pisa, or rather at Lucca, 



374 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



that this highly insalubrious region may he said 
to commence. The whole plain between this city 
and Leghorn, as far at least as it approaches the 
sea, is highly pernicious, on the testimony of Ita- 
lian authors, though it is the region watered by the 
almost classical Arno : and if Florence does escape 
that plague to a great degree, it is, on the same 
evidence, far from being the very healthy neigh- 
bourhood which it is commonly represented. But 
it is at Rosignano, or at the mouth of the Cecina, 
that we must fix the real boundary, in this direc- 
tion, of one of the most notoriously pestiferous 
tracts of Italy. Here begins the dreadful and 
dreaded Maremma of Tuscany ; terminating about 
Montalto, but continued through the dominions 
of the church, so as to include the terrific Pontine 
marshes, as far as Terracina and beyond it. 

Inland, the extent of this region is also consi- 
derable ; since, at Sienna itself, the annual mor- 
tality is one in ten, and even without epidemic 
fevers, or exclusive of them. It occupies an even 
wider space within the Roman states ; since it sur- 
rounds the lake of Bolsena, and, generally speak- 
ing, may be said to reach to the foot of the Apen- 
nine ; while the elevated position of Aquapen- 
dente and of other towns and villages, demon- 
strates the conviction long ago felt repecting its 



MALARIA. 



375 



insalubrity. There are not many parts of Italy, 
in fact, more marked by this pestiferous celebrity ; 
since, from the most ancient times, the Marem- 
ma of Rome has been even of worse repute than 
that of Tuscany ; while the Pontine marshes, I 
need scarcely repeat, are proverbial ; being almost 
depopulated, in some parts indeed an absolute 
desei't, and scarcely also to be passed, even in the 
most rapid manner, in the summer season, with- 
out imminent hazard. 

Of Rome itself I need not again speak : and if 
the town af Naples escapes this scourge, it is not 
so with regard to the sea shore, even from Gaeta ; 
since many parts are utterly uninhabitable in the 
summer. Nor is much of the surrounding inte- 
rior country exempt, in spite of its attractive 
name Felice: since the aspect of the inhabitants 
of Mondragone alone, is sufficient to forewarn, if 
not to terrify him who expects that the rich woods 
and cultivation of the Campagna are a warrant 
for its salubrity^ any more than are the refreshing 
breezes or the ancient fame of Puzzuoli and 
Raise. Many of the most highly cultivated and 
woody parts are in fact the most unwholesome ; 
and thus Caserta, Agnano, and Cumae may rank 
with Misenum and Puzzuoli. What Paestum is, 
oil another quarter, even the most incautious tra- 



376 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



vellers now know but too well ; and dearly have 
many paid for the idle curiosity which prompted 
them to seek a reputation for taste in exploring 
its classical ruins. But the whole of this shore 
from Salerno even to the island of Piana^ and far 
within the land, is alike pestiferous ; nor does it 
cease to be so until the mountains approach the 
shore far to the southward ; the same plague re- 
appearing at Policastro, in the gulf of St. Eufe- 
mia^ at Nicastro and elsewhere ; and skirting the 
entire coast from Tropea even to Cape Spar- 
tivento and beyond it. 

Hence^ along the eastern side of this promon- 
tory, the whole Calabrian coast is^ if that be pos- 
sible,, even more poisonous ; the seat of fevers of 
the worst kind^ wherever a river exists or a plain 
is to be founds and escaping only where the high 
land chances to meet the sea. Thus the whole 
gulf of TarentOj especially surrounded by wide 
alluvial plains and giving passage to many rivers, 
comprises a district scarcely exceeded for un- 
healthiness by any portion of Italy ; Gravina^ at 
the foot of the hills^ hardly terminating the range 
of its influence in this direction. Such also is the 
horrible celebrity of Otranto^ Brindisi^ and Mono- 
poli, that it is almost superfluous to name them; 
but^ ill fact^ this is the character of the whole 



MALARIA. 



377 



Adriatic shore here^ up to the gulf of Manfredo- 
nia ; while from the bay in particular^ the pesti- 
ferous region extends almost to the very foot of 
the Apennine^ so as to include, with that which 
reaches from the gulf of Taranto on the other 
side, the largest tract of unhealthy land in the 
south of Italy. 

Hence to Ancona, the entire coast is but a re- 
petition of the same circumstances ; a hundred 
rivers flowing down from the mountains, and 
each forming its little poisonous valley or plain ; 
while the few exceptions that occur, happen where 
some elevated point on the shore, or a hill in the 
interior, enables the breeze to divert or blow off 
that poison which is generated all around. Be- 
yond this, and even as far as Trieste itself, there 
is scarcely even this exception along the whole 
shore ; any further than as Venice chooses to 
claim that exemption which I formerly inquired 
of. 

But if there are tracts along this division of the 
shore of Italy more insalubrious than others, I 
need not here separate the mouths of the Po and 
the Adige, or the notorious gulf of Comacchio 
from the interior country to which they belong ; 
from that extensive plain lying between the Alps 
and the Apennine, of which so large a portion is 



378 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



noted for its bad air. Here, ten great rivers de- 
scend fi'om the Alps^ and twelve from the Apen- 
nine ; joining with four hundred and fifty smaller 
streams, to propel towards the sea that land 
which they have brought down ; thus extending 
the shore, and producing marshes and flats or 
lagunes, such that, in many places, the rivers are al- 
most reticulated by inosculation; leaving, in conse- 
quence, in many tracts, an intermixture ivhere the 
land and water compete for superiority. This is 
that geological process to which I formerly alluded, 
by which can be partly explained the great increase 
of Malaria in Italy in modern times ; and^ very 
particularly, in this division of the country, the 
palpably accelerating progress of disease, toge- 
ther with the extraordinary difference between 
the experience of modern times and the reports 
of the classical ones, as to the salubrity of the 
coast, even from Catolica to Aquileia. 

If the increased insahibrity of the sea shores 
on the great plan of Italy is accounted foi> by 
this increase of those coasts, by this immense 
production of a new territory, every atom al- 
most of which is the parent of a new and ex- 
tending poison, and of which increase there is 
abundant evidence in many more ways than the 
long exclusion of Ravenna from the sea, so it is 



MALARIA. 



379 



not difficult to explain the similar increase in the 
interior, dependent on the same causes acting in 
conjuction with the operations belonging to agri- 
culture. In every similar case of powerful rivers 
traversing a fertile plain, embankments become 
necessary, as I have formerly shown ; and, every 
year, while the height of these must be increased, 
so must they be carried to a higher point on the 
stream ; while, the including lands become more 
difficult to drain, and the entire region of marshy 
or wet land is extended. It is thus, in the dis- 
trict in question, that the Po is now, over a large 
tract, literally running on the summit of a wall, 
threatening even other dangers than a further in- 
crease of that bad health w^hich it is producing : 
both circumstances united having led to a design 
of letting it loose to find a new channel for itself, 
which, had the government of Italy continued in 
the same enlightened and powerful hands long 
enough, would doubtless have been carried into 
execution. 

To this cause, over Lombardy, and generally 
throughout this great plain, must be added the 
cultivation of rice, or, compared to the classical 
times, a general change as to the agriculture in 
general and the growth of woods ; comprising 
details as to individual spots, for which I must 



380 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



refer to Filiasi and others^ for Avant of space to 
treat such a subject minutely. But I may re- 
mark generally, that wherever, to the north of 
the Apennine, the same cultivation and the same 
lands do not produce the same extent of bad 
health as to the southward of these hills, it must 
be attributed to the effects of the cold north 
winds from the Alps, and to the screen which the 
former range affords against the pernicious south 
winds ; while to the effect of those in a great 
measure, further checked and retained also by 
these mountains, must be mainly attributed the 
unusually pestiferous qualities of the Roman 
Maremma. 

Having premised these explanatory particulars, 
I may, in a general way, divide the plain into 
three parts, namely from Turin to Milan^ from 
Milan to Mantua, and from the latter city to the 
sea or the lagunes. This last is the proper 
marshy district ; and it is almost superfluous to 
name that tract especially called the Mantuan, 
since the pestiferous nature of Mantua, Bologna, 
Ferrara, and many more places, has been long 
sufficiently notorious to scare away even those 
who affect to hold Malaria in contempt. If the 
Milanese is less widely or severely unhealthy, it 
is still but too well known for the Malaria of its 



MALARIA. 



381 



rice grounds ; while all along the Po, even to 
Pavia and beyond it, and in the course of the 
Ticino as far as that extremity of the lake of 
Como, the same insalubrity prevails in the sum- 
mer season. 

But I dare not give more space to this part of 
my subject ; which indeed could not be effectually 
treated, except by such a statistical catalogue of 
towns as Captain Smyth has produced for Sicily. 
This must suffice for the pure, the bright, the 
fragrant, the classical air of Italy, the paradise of 
Europe ; to such a pest house are its blue skies 
the canopy, and where its bright suns hold out 
the promise of life and joy, it is but to inflict 
misery and death. To him who knows what 
this land is, the sweetest breeze of summer is 
attended by an unavoidable sense of fear; and 
he who, in the language of the poets, wooes the 
balmy zephyr of the evening, finds death in its 
blandishments. 

Such is Malaria. We avoid the infection of 
the hospital, we may shun the city of the plague, 
we can shelter ourselves from the pestilence be- 
fore which thousands are falling around us. But 
who can hide himself from the universal atmos- 
phere, or refuse to breathe the wide air, though 
conscious that every inspiration is a draught of 



382 GEOGRAPHY OF 

poison ? Had nature corrupted the springs and 
the rivers of a whole country, we might have 
dechned to drink of them, or we at least might 
have imagined this in our power ; but we cannot 
refuse to breathe, even when we know that it is 
the breath of the grave, not the air of life. For- 
tunately, that which is not seen is forgotten, and 
fortunately also, habit reconciles us to every thing ; 
but were the Malaria crimson or blue, and ob- 
vious to the senses, the poet may inquire what 
the life of man would be under these circum- 
stances, whether he w^ould not expire from the 
mere fear of dying, or whether Italy, even Italy, 
would not, in many parts, be abandoned to its 
wolves and its mosquitoes. 

With respect to Sicily, I shall here refer to the 
statistical table of Captain Smyth, already pointed 
out as a kind of model for the species of tra- 
velling guide that I have recommended. The 
number of situations he has here pointed out as 
bad, amount to about eighty-two ; and, generally, 
they must be sought along the sea coast or, as 
on the Italian shore, where rivers find their exits, 
forming plains or vallies. I may however point 
out generally, a few of the most conspicuous; 
and among these, Syracuse preserves that deadly 
reputation which it seems to have possessed at all 



MALARIA. 



383 



periods. Nothing however can exceed, according 
to my author, the valley vratered by the Abysso, 
the ancient Helorus, where amidst the splendour 
and fragrance of the walnut, the olive, the vine, 
the fig, and the almond, intermixed with jessa- 
mines, aloes, roses, myrtles, oleanders, and a 
thousand aromatic shrubs, in the very bosom of 
beauty and luxuriance, amid the delights of a 
spot which poetry would lose itself in celebrating, 
the miserable and cadaverous natives drag out a 
wretched existence ; dying rather than living 
where the vegetable world spreads all its colours 
and odours to summer airs and bright skies. 
Well has it been said that Nature hides her 
poisons beneath her sweets, and holds out her 
pleasures to tempt and punish mankind; when 
such, in all these most highly favoured climates 
and in all the most fertile and the most beautiful 
spots, is the lot of the human race ; here at 
least guiltless of luxury, and obeying the very 
dictates of nature herself in the occupation and 
cultivation of the soil. 

Along the southern shores of this long famed 
island, not one spot is exempt from the plague 
of Malaria, even from Catania to Trapani ; but 
on the northern coast, the descent of the hills to 
the sea produces many salubrious situations ; the 



.384 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



pernicious ones being thus dispersed, and occur- 
ing chiefly near Messina, and thence to Patti, 
about Cape Orlando, St. Marco, Tassa, Termini, 
and Castel-a-mare ; with which I shall here ter- 
minate this brief notice. 

If Sardinia is even a more notedly pestiferous 
country than Sicily, I understand that the officer 
whom I have just named is about to produce a 
work on that island also, in which the details of 
the insalubrious places will be given in the same 
manner as for Sicily. In the mean time I may 
remark from him, that the entire eastern shore 
from St. Pilamo even to the Straits, is but the 
boundary of a belt of pernicious land which 
reaches to the foot of the mountains ; while the 
same also is nearly true of the whole western 
and southern shores, even from Cagliari to the 
Cape of Algher. Here, the descent of the 
mountains to the sea produces a salubrious tract 
as far as Cape Falcone ; but the pestiferous 
country re-appears within the bay, occupying the 
whole flat territory about Sassari, and extending 
far up the country along the course of the Goc- 
como. Thus, in fact, almost the whole of Sai*- 
dinia, except in the moutainous tracts, is subject 
to this plague ; while, whether from peculiarity 
in the climate, in the relative positions of the 



r 



MALARIA. 



385 



mountains and the low lands^ or in the effects of 
the windS;, added perhaps also to the habits of the 
people, its effects appear to be almost everywhere 
unusually severe or virulent. 

The entire eastern side of Corsica, from the 
straits to Bastia, possesses the same characters, 
though the belt of land is narrower ; while if 
Bastia itself is insalubrious, St. Fiorenzo is al- 
most uninhabitable from the same cause. On the 
western side, the unhealthy spots are separated 
by ridges of hilly land, occupying, as usual, the 
Tallies ; and among them, the most conspicuous 
are the gulfs of Calvi, Porto, Sagone, and Campo 
Moro, together with that of Ajaccio and the 
town itself. How severely the French garrisons 
have at different times suffered in this island, and 
particularly at St. Fiorenzo, I had formerly occa- 
sion to notice. 

From Porto Ferrajo to Porto Longone in Elba, 
there is also a considerable tract of Malaria : and 
I had formerly occasion to speak of Minorca as 
far as it related to Port Mahon, while I may here 
add the western side of this island about Ciuda- 
dela as not less notorious for its insalubrity. In 
Majorca, the chief pernicious district is that 
which surrounds Alcudia, extending to a consi- 
derable distance inland ; while in Ivica, the un- 



386 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



healthy region includes the town of Ivica itself 
and the surrounding tract for many miles. 

With respect to Greece^ I am compelled to 
limit myself entirely to the coasts^ and to Cap- 
tain Smyth's observations^ having had little suc- 
cess in my researches among travellers^ even when 
medical ones ; there seeming to have been a sort 
of general agreement to neglect this important 
branch of the natural history of those countries, 
though the fate of many of our travellers, or of 
our speculators on Greek liberty, and one noted 
instance in particular, might have been supposed 
sufficient to excite an interest in it, even if 
our occupancy of one portion of this famed land 
had not. If we commence from Trieste, we may 
at once condemn the whole flat lands of Istria, 
from Capo d' Istria to Pola ; where, to travellers, 
the beauty of the scenery in many places, is ill 
attained through the hazards which must be en- 
countered, and where, as in Italy, all the dangers 
from all the banditti that ever lived, are but as a 
feather against those which scarcely any precau- 
tion can guard against in summer. The moun- 
tainous coast of Croatia seems to be exempt, as 
is generally true everywhere here, except where 
some occasional valley of a jieculiar character 
occurs : and if among the nmnerous islands of 



MALARIA. 



387 



this shore, there are many not subject to the 
Malaria, we may be sure that it is where there is 
no water^ as is here frequently the case. But 
Veglia is not exempt, nor the coast from Nona 
to Sebenico and Spalatro, nor the islands of Le- 
sina, Corsola, and Melida, and the peninsula of 
Sarioncello : while nearly the whole of the Dal- 
matian and Albanian shores, including the mouths 
of the Narenta, Ragusa, and Cattaro, and then 
extending uninterruptedly even to Valona^ is one 
entire tract of fevers, occupying also a very con- 
siderable breadth towards the interior country. 

If this pestiferous belt is here interrupted for 
a space by high land, it recommences at Panor- 
mo, extending southwards along the coast, so as, 
almost everywhere^ to surround even the gulf of 
Lepanto ; of variable breadth, and that breadth 
always regulated^ as usual, by the positions of 
the mountains, or by that form of land to which 
it is owing that entire Greece is so much less 
exposed to this plague than it would otherwise 
be. Hence it is, in reality, that the topography 
of the shores of that country as to this subject, 
is nearly also the topography of the entire 
shores while by pointing out in a few places its 
inland extent, I shall afford a rule for judging of 
others, where, either from ignorance or the desire 

cc 2 



388 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



of brevity, I have not entered more fully into 
this geography. 

Thus, while it occupies in part the islands un- 
der our own care, namely, Corfu, St. Maura, Ce- 
phallonia, and Zante, it extends from the former 
to J oannina ; surrounding that lake, and reaching 
down the Arta, so as to include the whole of 
that gulf also. And thus, further, while it is 
now but too well known to surround Missolonghi, 
where, as on many other parts of this coast, the 
immediate shore is marshy, the whole plain or 
low country including the courses of the Aspro- 
potamo and the Fidari, is a land of Malaria and 
fevers. 

With the name of Missolonghi just dropping 
from my pen, I cannot well avoid making a re- 
mark on the fate of our great poet : a remark 
which refers to what I have more than once had 
occasioQ to point out in the course of this work, 
namely, the ignorance, or error, respecting the 
fevers of Malaria which is so prevalent, and the 
consequent maltreatment to which they are so 
often subject. And in using these terms, I do 
not merely allude to that error so nearly universal 
among ourselves at home, which does not per- 
ceive the situations productive of Malaria, which 
attributes our summer fevers to imaginary causes, 



MALARIA. 



389 



or which, still more censurabJy, mistakes them 
for typhus, but which, far too often, confounds 
peculiar modifications of it with disorders of an 
entirely dissimilar character, or overlooks it alto- 
gether when slight ; such errors being productive 
of corresponding erroneous treatment or neglect, 
often attended by fatal consequences. If no fur- 
ther acquainted with the latter history of Lord 
Byron than the public is, there seems ground 
enough for judgment ; while the similar fate of 
others in the same country and circumstances 
and from the same errors, confirms the opinion 
which I felt compelled to adopt, from the first 
moment, respecting the death of this ill-fated 
personage. 

Had an English, untravelled, practitioner' com- 
mitted this, not merely error, but series of errors, 
it would have excited no surprise, since that oc- 
curs in our own country every day : but that an 
Italian physician should not have perceived the 
disorder to be the remittent fever, though in a 
slight or obscure form, that he should have per- 
sisted in his mistakes to the last, converting a 
mild disease into a severe one, that, against re- 
monstrances which should have opened the eyes 
of any man, and in a land and season of Malaria, 
where no man who had eyes could be supposed 



390 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



capable of shutting them to the truth^ he should 
have so persevered in wrong, is nearly incredible. 
Whether Lord Byron would have died of that 
fever^ under proper treatment^ He alone to whom 
the book of Fate lies open^ knows ; but while 
many maist feel that indignation, as well as re- 
gretj which some would eJso express under the 
same conviction, it is difficult at least not to 
think, even under the most dispassionate view of 
the circumstances, that the death of this lamented 
personage was caused by the ignorance of his 
physician ; if ever that act was committed by 
physic. 

To return to the Morea. Commencing at 
Gastouni, we find the whole plain which includes 
the Alpheus and the other rivers of this district, 
equally unwholesome, and to a wide extent; 
while, comparatively skirting the shore further to 
the southward, it is sooner terminated by the 
mountains in this direction. Thus the Malaria 
attends the rivers which flow into the gulfs of 
Koron and Kolokythnia ; penetrating many miles 
along these vallies, and re-appearing at Argos 
and at Napoli di Romania, as our own country- 
men have discovered ; while, moreover, it occurs 
almost every where along the promontory and 
round the eastern shore, as far as Corinth and 



MALARIA. 



391 



Megara ; extending even near to Athens, nor 
omitting j^gina in this quarter. The ill fame of 
the plain of Marathon has now also become fa- 
miliar, as is that of the opposed shores of Negro- 
pont ; and if both coasts of the channel of Ta- 
landa are insalubrious, that which reaches from 
Thebes as far as to Zeitoun, penetrates into the 
interior, along the Salambria and the Gaurios, 
even towards the declivities of Parnassus, main- 
taining its pernicious character through this 
whole extent. 

As to the whole of this part of Greece, and 
indeed of that country generally, I may make the 
same observation as I did respecting Italy, 
namely, that although what I formerly remarked 
as to the drainages of the ancients and the fables 
of Hercules, and what may be found in the 
writings ascribed to Hippocrates, testify that such 
diseases existed, and that their causes were well 
understood, yet there has probably been a great 
increase of insalubrity since the classical times, 
from causes similar to those which I then pointed 
out. Of these, the chief must be sought in geo- 
logical changes of the surface, produced by the 
action of rivers and of the sea, and giving rise to 
new and pestilential alluvial lands ; as also in new 
modes of agriculture or of rural economy at large ; 



392 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



those comprising, principally, the cultivation of 
rice and the management of woods : while, as to 
this particular countr}'', when compared with Italy 
through the same period of time, it is easy to see 
that much may be attributed to the consequences 
of misgovernment ; to diminished capital, indus- 
try, and perhaps also knowledge, or, generally, to 
diminished care and improvement as far as the 
lands are concerned. 

The former great cause, unceasing, if slow, is 
that indeed in which the whole world is impli- 
cated ; nor is it difficult to see, as I formerly 
explained, that while the mountains shall flow to 
the sea, increasing the plains, and, in creating 
new lands, providing, in an increase of fertility 
as well as of extent, for an augmenting popula- 
tion, so must the augmentation of insalubrity 
and the increase of diseases accompany these 
changes. And while, in such cases, increase of 
industry and attention is required to meet the 
evil, it is the misfortune of Greece, as it has been 
of many other declining or fallen states, to have 
suffered a loss or diminution of both, or of that 
at least which alone could have maintained and 
stimulated them, from the effects of its unhappy 
and lamentable political condition. Did any vi- 
sionary geologist thus choose to speculate on the 



MALARIA. 



393 



day when the mountains shall be levelled with 
the plains beneath, an event which, in a period 
beyond the range of calculation, must happen 
should our globe endure thus long, he must also 
be prepared to view that previous period when, 
whatever vegetation or whatever animals may 
possess the marshes and plains of that world, it 
will scarcely be man ; since, long before this, he 
will have been driven from them, as he has been 
from the Pontine marshes, by that plague which 
Nature is even now daily preparing in silence to 
keep his unmanageable increase within bounds. 

To return to Larissa, we may include the 
whole plain of Thessaly within the range of 
Grecian Malaria ; while its history may also 
teach us what must be expected when, at some 
far distant day, as I once before suggested, the 
destruction of the bed of the St. Lawrence from 
Niagara backwards, shall, if it does not similarly 
drain Lake Erie, expose at least a large portion 
of the bottom of that lake, and probably induce 
many other great changes on the surrounding 
country. From Larissa, the range of Olympus 
ensures the salubrity of a considerable space along 
this shore ; but the Oleander, among other vege- 
table beauties, the infallible warning of Malaria 
wherever it occurs, soon begins to tell the tale of 



394 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



that tract which^ reaching along this shore to Sa- 
lonika, and beyond it to Panorni, occupies the 
Venetiko as far as Grevno, and extends so 
widely throughout all these vallies and plains of 
Macedonia. 

From Erissos to Cavallo, and all through the 
gulf of Contessa, there is a similar tract of un- 
healthy land : and if, beyond this^ my informa- 
tion respecting the coasts of the Grecian main- 
land draws to a close, I can still point out the 
coast, and also the valley for a long space, which 
extends from Enos to Ipsala and towards 
Adrianople. 

In the islands of the Archipelago, the entire of 
Lemnos, and a great portion of Imbros, are simi- 
larly pernicious ; as is all that part of Mitylene 
which surrounds the bay, together with the east- 
ern side of Scio, almost the whole of Naxos, a 
part of Cerigo, and the whole of Milo and Paros : 
the latter island being peculiarly pestiferous, as I 
formerly had occasion to remark when speaking 
of the fate of the Russian army at Naussa. In 
Candia, there are various unhealthy tracts ; 
namely, at Candia itself ; at Sudo, Port Stauro, 
and Settia; and thus, certain parts of Cyprus, 
particularly near Famagusta, are among the most 
notoriously poisonous climates in the Mediterra- 



MALARIAc 



395 



nearly as Dr. Clarke has remarked ; though pay- 
ing less attention to this subject than^ from his 
personal sufferings united to his medical know- 
ledge might have been expected. 

I must pass over the African, shore of this 
sea^ where^ nevertheless^ there occur many un- 
healthy spots ; as is the case between Susa and 
Bona : partly because my information is imper- 
fect, and partly because it is less interesting to 
general readers than the countries of Europe 
which they may chance to visit. Thus I must 
proceed to the shores of Spain ; respecting which 
however, my information is very scanty^ and, 
what is worse, incapable, at present, of being 
augmented. Tracing from the Pyrenees, there 
is an insalubrious tract near the Gulf of Rosas 
and including Gerona, of no inconsiderable ex- 
tent ; while, beyond the mountains, a similar one 
occurs at Tosa and St. F. de Guixolos. That 
Barcelona is not the very healthy place which it 
was once thought, has been recently proved ; but 
the first united and extensive territory of Malaria 
succeeding this, is that which commences to the 
southward of Tarragona, occupying the mouths 
of the Ebro, and extending many miles along its 
course into the interior; while it ranges the whole 
shoro^ beyond Cape St. Martin to Bcnisa. This 



396 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



is the rich, the fertile, the envied Valencia ; a 
province in which this plague is, unfortunately, 
not limited to the sea coast, since it occupies the 
entire country, wherever that is flat and fertile : 
extending to Segorbe in one part, and similarly 
along the Xucar, and, from Valencia, far along 
the course of the Guadalaviar. 

To pass over some other spots of less note, 
Murcia is the center of another similarly pesti- 
lential tract, reaching nearly from Alicante to 
beyond Cartagena ; this latter district being the 
rival of the Pontine marshes, and the grave of 
those who, even for a few months, nay, often 
during a few days, are condemned to labour in 
its destructive vicinity. And if, still further west- 
ward, I have reason to believe that very little of 
this coast is exempt, even to the mountains of the 
interior, I can only point out, as especially noto- 
rious, the country round Aguilas, the vallies ex- 
tending inwards from Almeria, Adra, and Salo- 
breno, and the flat lands from St. Roque, as they 
hem in Gibraltar ; itself placed beyond the reach 
of this plague, by its elevation, united, probably, 
to its particular ventilation. 

The Atlantic shores of Spain, henceforward, 
present one continuous tract of pestilential land, 
which, if comparatively narrow from Gibraltar to 



MALARIA. 



397 



Trafalgar^ soon enlarges so as to reach even to 
Medina Sidonia: while^ if Cadiz escapes much of 
the evil^ it is only from holding a position which, 
if^ sometimes, and in some seasons, comparatively 
secure, is not protected from those winds at least, 
which hlow from the marshes of Chiclana to the 
southward and eastward. Here indeed the easterly 
winds deserve the reputation which I formerly 
attempted to adjust ; nor would it now be diffi- 
cult to see over the territory which I have already 
passed in this cursory manner, how this entire 
point might be determined, by a due comparison 
of the localities of places generating Malaria and 
of those receiving it, under the influence of this 
wind or any other : while a similar investigation 
of the geography and of the facts which relate to 
the existence of disease, on the one hand, and to 
its remote probable causes, on the other^, com- 
pared with the results as they follow certain 
winds, would confirm, over every part of the Me- 
diterranean, and indeed of the world generally, 
the view which I formerly attempted to establish. 
With respect to Cadiz, I ought however to re- 
mark, that it has been the subject of a peculiar 
controversy as to this question : a dispute, the 
causes of which are similar to those in which the 
West Indies, Gibraltar, and New York have been 



398 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



involved, and into wliicb, of course, I dare not 
enter : while not doubting, that whatever may 
have been the celebrated yellow fever/' this 
city is subject to the influence which I have been 
describing, though, assuredly, in a less degree 
than if it had not that protection which it derives 
from its insulated position. 

But the whole of this portion of Andalusia is 
more or less insalubrious, and often very highly 
so ; while if Arcos and Seville are included within 
this boundary, so it reaches to Lagos, or almost 
' to Cape St. Vincent ; extending also along the 
Guadiana, over the whole plain, to Badajos and 
Merida, and much further indeed than my im- 
perfect knowledge enables me to pursue it: 
though I may remark that where that river disap- 
pears to form great marshes at Alcaza, it produces 
a particularly unhealthy district. 

I must here indeed cut short this brief notice 
on Spain, at least for this part ; since I can find 
no further information respecting the interior 
country, beyond the general notices of superficial 
travellers ; and having also lost my pilot, I must 
be even more brief respecting the northern shore. 
Notwithstanding the large portion of this country 
which is occupied by mountains, it is impossible 
that Spain can be exempt from Malaria, even all 



MALARIA. 



399 



through its ulterior as well as its sea coasts ; 
amid its confined vallies^ and by the banks of its 
numerous rivers. Of this, indeed, we find casual 
evidences in abundance, yet none that I can quote 
with satisfaction; while^ though this splendid^ 
but ill-fated country is not deficient in philosophical 
writings, I have not had the good fortune to dis- 
cover any work even alluding to a subject which 
has formed almost a source of occupation for the 
authors of Italy. That the wretched state of 
medical science in Spain may be the cause, in 
some measure, of this neglect^ is not improbable ; 
since this country is not wanting in statistical 
writers, while this is a branch of statistics which 
seems, by a sort of tacit consent, to have been 
left to a profession^ which, surely, has not done 
it any very great justice, any where. 

For the purpose of preserving the coast line in 
this sketch, I may take up Portugal from this 
point. That the shores and the valley of the 
Tagus are highly insalubrious, and particularly 
about the salt marshes and manufactories, is now 
familiar ; while the unhealthy region extends far 
up this great river to Santarem, Abrantes, and 
far beyond it, so as to extend in this direction 
into Spain, even as far as Truxillo. If Lisbon 
itself is exempt, as is the high and irregular land 



400 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



on the opposed side of the Tagus, the insahi- 
brious country commences with the plain on the 
right bank, while, on the left, it extends far 
through the level or open country from Aldea 
Gallega. On the right, towards Abrantes, Go- 
lagao is peculiarly notorious ; while at Azambuja, 
and thence to Santarem, lies that proverbially 
pestiferous region, of which the very name ex- 
cites terror. Nor is the Douro exempt, and still 
less the watery country of Entre Minho and 
Douro ; while a hundred separate spots along 
this shore, which it would be tedious to name, 
reaching even to Ferrol, and all of them the exits 
of rivers or the mouths of valleys, attest the uni- 
versality of a general rule which will always be 
a safe guide in forming a judgment on this sub- 
ject. The same is true of the whole shore of 
the Asturias, from St. Sebastian to near Cape 
Ortegal, though the narrow or scattered extent 
of plain in this tract, and the general hilly nature 
of the country, confines the insalubrity to differ- 
ent very limited spots, and, as usual, to the seats 
of rivers generally ; while I may also remark, 
that the peculiar ventilation of the whole of the 
Atlantic shores of the peninsula, united with, 
and partly regulated by the positions and altitude 
of the mountains, renders all this division less 



MALARIA. 401 

virulently unwholesome than the similar situa- 
tions within the Mediterranean. 

With respect to the extent and the localities 
of the Malaria in France, I must commence hy 
regretting that I have lost my guide as to the 
sea coasts, and that, as I formerly observed, I 
have been disappointed in the expectations which 
I had formed from Monfalcon*s work. But 
however imperfect this sketch will therefore be, 
I shall probably still surprise those of our own 
countrymen to whom this subject is new, and 
even those who, acquainted with the evil reputa- 
tion of Italy on this point, and perhaps not a 
little guided also by the association of terms, 
are almost inclined to think that Malaria is an 
exclusively Italian substance as it is an Italian 
word. 

I may commence, as before, with the sea shores, 
and by the general assertion, requiring in reality 
but few exceptions, of which Cherbourg is one, 
but of which St. Malo is not one, in spite of its 
apparently promising situation, that from Dun- 
kirk, or, in strictness, as to present France, from 
Calais, there is not a sea port on the coast, as far 
as St. Brieux, where a stranger can remain in 
summer, or rather, after July, without the hazard 
of fever. That the residents comparatively es- 

D D 



402 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



cape, is only a consequence of what I have fully 
explained, as far at least as it is explained, in the 
medical part of this work : but it will be found 
that every flat situation on this long line of coast 
is unhealthy, though the degree of insalubrity is 
far inferior to what it is within the Mediterranean. 

Not to be unnecessarily minute, the insalu- 
brious nature of the land round Calais is quite 
notorious : and though Boulogne is infinitely less 
hazardous, there are many English residents who 
have had to repent the day when they chose this 
as a dwelling place. To pass over many other 
places, the same is true of the mouth of the 
Seine, generally, as at Havre and elsewhere ; and 
of many of the situations along the whole of this 
shore, as far as Carentan, including Pont 
L'Eveque and Caen ; while, within the land, the 
Malaria, to that moderate degree, compared to 
Italy, with which it affects this north coast of 
France, extends into Normandy in numerous 
places along the courses of the rivers, and through 
the flatter and fertile plains; as is the case, 
among others, with the valley of the Auge. 

But on this coast, the most pestiferous tract is 
one, of which Avranches and Dol may be taken 
as the principal points, since the higher lands and 
shores of the promontory escape for the most 



MALARIA. 



403 



part ; nor, as far as relates to inveterate tertians, 
is this marshy and flat district of Normandy ex- 
celled even by Holland ; the whole bay, in fact, 
at this part, being a pest-house as to endemic 
fevers ; and even thesie less poisonous portions of 
France being subject to occasional severe epide- 
mics, as I have had formerly occasion to notice 
respecting Bernieres. 

With respect however to many of the towns 
and places along this shore, it is surprising, and 
sometimes not unamusing, to find how this truth 
is suppressed or denied, as is so generally the 
ease everywhere ; so as to mislead all but a phy- 
sician, intent on this subject, and not to be de- 
ceived by what, if he knows it at all, he is always 
prepared for. It is only la fievre," or " la fievre 
du pays," or la fievre tierce while the English 
visitors or residents, ignorant of the subject, not 
uncommonly of every subject, perhaps incredulous 
or contemptuous, holding aloof from the people, 
or unacquainted with their speech and manners, 
and moreover, from that " morgue aristocratique" 
which is the effect of what foreigners satirically 
call an English education, despising and over- 
looking the People everywhere, remain ignorant 
of the diseases in the midst of which they are 
.living, till their own turn arrives to suffer ; even 

D D 2 



404 



GEOGRAPHY OJF 



then not understanding that the ^'fievre du pays" is 
the fever of Malaria, but attributing their misfor- 
tunes to eating figs or drinking French wines, or 
occupying a damp house. If I have, more than 
once, found a whole country suffering from these 
diseases, where I was previously assured that 
Malaria was unknown, I have acquired a right 
to be incredulous as to the salubrity of many 
places, where, nevertheless, I cannot at present 
prove the existence of this plague. 

The coast of Brittany has the reputation of 
being exempt as far as Brest ; and I cannot prove 
the contrary, however I may suspect the river of 
Morlaix among other places ; but assuredly it 
cannot be free from pernicious ground within 
that bay, nor at Quimper, nor in the Morbihan ; 
as it certainly is not at U Orient and Vannes, 
though the whole evil fame is swallowed up in 
the terrible repute of what is properly called 
Basse Bretagne ; a tract of great extent along the 
shore, and reaching inland even to Rennes, so as 
to occupy a great portion of the departments of 
the Morbihan, lie et Vilaine, and the Lower 
Loire. What Nantes itself is, in this respect, is 
now well known, even to our countrymen who 
have thought fit to resort to it for economy — and 
for climate. 



MALARIA. 



405 



Such is the character also of La Vendee, not 
only along the coast but in the interior ; Beauvoir 
sur mer and Lucon being peculiarly notorious : 
and as we draw towards the south, the fevers also 
assume a character of greater malignity, while 
further, as in Italy, which France now begins to 
emulate in all points of evil, becoming frequently 
and severely epidemic, in autumn, and after pe- 
culiarly hot seasons. Nor is it otherwise from 
the mouth of the Sevre to the Gironde ; Roche- 
fort being noted for its insalubrity, as is Brouage, 
and as are considerable tracts on the Charente : 
while a great portion of Poitou in the interior, is 
among the most notedly pestiferous districts in 
France; beingnearlyconnected with a very exten- 
sive range of the same kind, as will appear more 
particularly hereafter in sketching the extent of 
Malaria on the Loire. Hence to Bayonne I 
am unacquainted with the coast ; but a recent 
epidemic mortality at Bordeaux, which I had for- 
merly occasion to mention, is sufficient to prove 
that this is not the salubrious spot which it had 
been reported by our countrymen. I am indeed 
informed that great portions of that extensive 
and well known district called the Landes are 
extremely insalubrious, not only on the coast but 
in the interior ; a circumstance exceedingly pro- 



406 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



bable from the peculiar character of much of 
that singular country. 

With respect to the Mediterranean shore of 
France, I may almost say that it is one entire 
range of Malaria from the Pyrenees to the Alps, 
and in some places scarcely less pestiferous than 
the worst parts of Italy. Such are the salt 
marshes of Peccais in Languedoc, and very uni- 
versally the whole tract of the Bouches du Rhone, 
among which Camargues is especially notorious, 
to a very great extent in the interior ; since, as 
I shall presently show, this pernicious region 
reaches even to the junction of the Saone at 
Lyons, and beyond it. The coast of Provence, 
between Marseilles and the mouth of that river, 
is similarly bad, as is the interior tract in this 
particular quarter ; and, on the other side, Nar- 
bonne is not less noted for its unhealthy climate. 

On the Italian side, Frejus seems however to 
be nearly the boundary of this region : but if 
Montpelier has escaped this evil reputation, 
among some other places, it is somewhat difficult 
to believe its claims, when Cette is as unhealthy 
a place as can well be ; though it must be allow- 
ed, that on the principles formerly explained with 
regard to the resistance of towns, the greater 
cities may here be exempt, while the smaller ones 



MALARIA. 



407 



and the proper country suffer. But I need not be 
more minute as to this shore ; since no one can 
look at its topography^ almost even in a map^ or 
visit any one town, or examine the population, 
without being convinced of the fact, and without 
also becoming speedily aware of the extent of 
the evil. In as far as Toulon and Marseilles 
may escape, it is partly owing to the magnitude 
of those towns, but partly also to the form of the 
land for a certain space along this shore : and 
thus, in some other places, where there is no 
margin of flat alluvial land, or where that is very 
narrow while the towns are situated on the decli- 
vities, the insalubrity is comparatively small, or is 
but casual, or is experienced by those only who 
may be engaged in these deleterious spots. 

To proceed inwards from the mouth of the 
Rhone, I believe I need scarcely say that Avignon 
is included within this unhealthy country ; as its 
character is now tolerably well known to travel- 
lers. Thus does the Malaria attend us in our 
progress along the river, and on both sides^ even 
to a considerable extent laterally in many places ; 
numerous and considerable tracts of this nature 
occurring in particular in the department of the 
Isere, and also in those of the Drome and the 
Ardeche. But to pass over many individual 



408 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



places along the line of this river, or, continuing 
that Hne on the Saone, even to Macon^ and be- 
yond that town^ it is here that there occurs one 
of the most pestiferous districts in all France, as 
I have more than once had occasion to point out 
in discussing the effects of Malaria. This is the 
department of the Ain, in which that portion 
called Bresse is also the most notorious. This 
almost undrainable country is a collection of fo- 
rests, marshes, and pools ; it being computed 
that there are about 1,800,000 acres completely 
barren, from these waters, and the chief pools or 
lakes being those of Grand Birieux, les Brevan- 
nes, For^t Curtilet, les Vavres, and Glarins ; and 
the principal marshes those of St. Croix, Joyeux, 
Buelle, Vial, Molieres, and Echets. Hence it is, 
that the towns of St. Trivier, Chatillon^ Villars, 
St. Nizier, Marlieux, and St. Paul, among others, 
are peculiarly insalubrious : while the picture 
which has been drawn of the state of the popu- 
lation, by Monfalcon, the author from whom I 
have borrowed these remarks, will be given in a 
subsequent chapter. 

The pestiferous lands which abound along the 
course of the Loire, commence almost with the 
river itself, which, on this point, will scarcely 
yield to the Po and the Adige. It is here that 



MALARIA. 



409 



the notorious plain of Forez lies ; while about 
Montbrisson and St. Ramhert, there are not less^ 
than four hundred and fifty lakes and pools, to- 
gether with many marshes, such as that of Ail- 
land. The whole of this tract is scarcely habit- 
able, except in winter ; since the bad air rages 
even from April to November, forming a larger 
season of disease than what occurs generally in 
Italy ; because, at Rome, that scarcely commences 
till St. John's day. The fevers are eternal, and 
consist chiefly of never-ending tertians and quar- 
tans ; while the people are universally stupid, in- 
dolent, sallow, apathetic, and more like walking 
skeletons than living men ; becoming old, if they 
live so long, at forty-five, and entirely decrepid if 
they survive beyond fifty. The population thus 
dies off rapidly, requiring perpetual renewal ; yet 
even in a region so utterly mortal as this may 
safely be called, the high wages maintain an un- 
failing supply of emigrants ; so thoughtless is 
mankind. 

Pursuing the same course, we find the similar 
district of Brenne in Bas Berry ; the same land 
of lakes and fevers, and if worse can be, worse. 
The children, here, are ill even from their birth, 
and often die of the diseases of the climate before 
they are seven years old ; while the general popu- 



410 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



lation, living a life of misery, scurvy, dropsy, and 
fevers, becomes old at twenty ; very few reaching 
the extreme old age of fifty. 

If the banks of the Loire smile in the imagina- 
tions of those whose knowledge is derived from 
poetry and romance, if Sterne and his Maria have 
enticed many a wandering Englishman to breathe 
its zephyrs and listen to its pipe, and — to lay up 
a long stock of bitter repentance, let future spec- 
ulators qualify the page of fancy with those of 
Monfalcon, ere they trust themselves to its seduc- 
tions or to those of its ally, the Cher. It is here 
that he will detail to them the delights of Sologne, 
fit rival in attractions to the Maremmas of Tus- 
cany and Rome. 

This most detestable tract occupies a superfi- 
cial space of about two thousand three hundred 
square miles, chiefly in the department of the 
Loire and Cher in the Orleannais ; reaching from 
Blois to Henrichemont, and including some tracts 
near Orleans and Gien ; thus forming a large 
oval, beset with marshes and pools, and chiefly 
so near Orleans and Romorantin. What the dis- 
eases are, and what the misery of the people,, I 
need not repeat, since it is but to tell the same 
tale again ; while, on different occasions, in vari- 
ous parts of this entire work, I have named this 



MALARIA. 



411 



very tract as evidence or otherwise relating to the 
subjects under review. 

1 need not pursue the Loire to Nantes, where 
1 formerly left off ; since, if there is no pestilen- 
tial tract of equal integrity and magnitude with 
that which I have just described, the same cha- 
racter of country occurs along the whole course 
of that river, and often to a considerable extent 
from its borders. Thus also Poitiers, as I lately 
suggested, is the center of a district not less insa- 
lubrious than many others which I have here 
described, if less extensive and united than So- 
logne : but the truth is, that with respect to the 
interior of France, so numerous are the tracts 
and spots of this nature, from the peculiar cha- 
racter of the rivers and the distribution of the 
land, that an entire catalogue would form almost 
a geographical grammar of the country ; while 
my object here has been to select those places 
which are most notorious, or which, as the resort 
of English residents, seemed to demand an espe- 
cial notice. I must not however conclude with- 
out remarking, that there is a great extent of in- 
salubrious country in the department of the high 
Garonne, and also, to make a somewhat sudden 
transition, that while the Seine is a guide to many 



412 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



similar tracts, its influence extends widely above 
Paris and over the country about Laon. 

Respecting Flanders, I know not that I could 
say any thing which is not already familiar to 
every one, while the land here speaks for itself ; 
and as to Holland, its name alone must serve, 
since it is the land Kor' e'^oxtiv of Malaria and 
fogs. Of Germany I am ignorant, at least as far 
as details are concerned, as the non-German 
world at large appears to be ; but it requires little 
reading to know that the flat and marshy tracts 
along the banks of the Rhine at least, and many 
also of its towns, among which I may name Op- 
penheim, may compete for the palm of fevers 
with Rome or Holland ; while as far as the Da- 
nube is German, it is also productive of numer- 
ous unhealthy tracts. In Switzerland, I already 
pointed out the suspicious lakes and meadow 
lands ; and if, for this country also, I can not 
find many specific details, I can, from Zimmer- 
man's authority, accuse the canton of Underwald, 
and particularly Stanz ; where an epidemic fever 
of this nature was so severe in 1717, that the 
patients very commonly died in the second fit. It 
would be abundantly easy to divine where Swit- 
zerland, and Germany also, are insalubrious : but 



MALARIA. 



413 



I have chosen to make this chapter a record of 
ascertained facts, since any reader, versant at 
once in physical and political geography, can 
easily do for himself all that I could do for him. 

Henceforward indeed I must contract altoge- 
ther ; since I can discover nothing but a few ca- 
sual notices in books of travels and statistics ; 
willing enough to leave to others the remainder 
of a somewhat wearisome task and no very lively 
chapter. But there is a general accusation against 
the whole of the shores of the Baltic ; against 
Denmark very widely, and especially also against 
Samogitia and Courland ; while Stockholm is fa- 
miliarly known for the severity and inveteracy of 
its intermittents ; so little is a northern latitude a 
security, where there are wet lands and a hot 
summer. The marshy forests of the Kama and 
the Viatka in Poland, are equally notorious ; and 
it would appear indeed that the fevers of Malaria 
abound in great severity, generally, through all 
the woody and marshy regions of these countries, 
even when placed far to the north ; since even 
Lapland itself does not appear to be exempt. 

If we approach the southern provinces of Rus- 
sia, it is to reach a country than which none 
more pestiferous exists in Europe, and scarcely 
indeed in the tropical climates ; since such is the 



414 



GEOGRAPHY Or 



history of the country of the Don, and of the 
Crimea, as of Bessarabia and the Turkish pro- 
vinces here, or generally, of the whole of the flat 
and marshy lands which border the great rivers 
and the Black sea. The death of Howard would 
have rendered that country notorious, even with- 
out the travels of Dr. Clarke ; but as I must here 
end with Europe, for want of the means of pur- 
suing it further with that minuteness of detail 
and validity of authority which form the grounds 
of this chapter, I may remind the reader of Mol- 
davia and Wallachia, formerly noticed, and of 
Hungary, the grave of armies ; the latter coun- 
try being, over large tracts, marshy through half 
the year, and when drying, producing the same 
effects which arise in Africa and in the East from 
that cause. 

I might detail the geography of the Malaria of 
America at considerably more length, since the 
information here is more perfect, but that I am 
unwilling to extend a chapter, the length of 
which is already formidable, and since it is, prac- 
tically, less interesting than the countries espe- 
cially frequented by our travellers, to which I 
have, preferably, given the room which I could 
spare. Generally therefore, I must observe, this 
plague occupies the Canadas, in summer, every 



MALARIA. 



415 



where along the shores of the great lakes and 
rivers ; the character being commonly that of in- 
vetrate intermittents : while, whether Lake Erie 
is worse than the others or not, it has the worst 
reputation, as have, elsewhere, the banks of the 
Mohawk river, and the Genesee. With respect 
to the United States, formed of alluvial land as 
they chiefly are, Volney remarks, that out of a 
space of three hundred leagues, he did not find 
twenty houses free from the fevers of Malaria ; 
the most distinguished places, nevertheless, being 
the course of the Ohio, rendering even the inte- 
rior State of Kentucky insalubrious, the towns of 
Norfolk, Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, 
New Orleans, Savannah, and Pensacola, with 
Baltimore, and almost the entire States, in fact, 
of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, the Floridas, 
and Louisiana. 

Such are the United Provinces of this great 
country ; while in many of the southern states, 
the evil has, for some time, been so rapidly in- 
creasing, as almost to threaten the abandonment 
of the lands ; the proprietors having, in reality, 
in many parts, been obliged to quit their houses 
and estates and retire to the towns, even against 
an express law which compels their actual resi- 
dence ; thus leaving them to the superintendence 
and occupation of their slaves, and offering a 



41G 



GEOGRAPHY OF 



Strong argument in favour of a black population 
at least, if not of an enslaved one. But to cut 
short this portion^ the same plague is found to 
prevail very widely even through the extreme in- 
terior, and amid the newly settled or still un- 
cleared lands, along the course of the Mississipi 
and its endless tributary streams ; to the no small 
surprise and the serious grievance of the numer- 
ous settlers by which such a state of things was 
not contemplated. What the fate of much of this 
new country may ultimately be in this respect, it 
is difficult to foresee, when we reflect on the nu- 
merous circumstances already stated, which mo- 
dify the production and propagation of Malaria, 
and where so much is yet to be done as to altera- 
tion ; though it is to be suspected that no changes 
and no cultivation will ever bring into a state 
of salubrity, a country so abounding with allu- 
vial plains, even in the interior, and so exten- 
sively the produce of its numerous and enormous 
rivers. 

Familiar on this point as are the West Indian 
islands, and well known as are even their perni- 
cious spots, I need only name Jamaica, St. Lucia, 
St. Domingo, Martinique, Dominica, and St. 
Vincent, as the most remarkable ; while Spanish 
America, commencing with Vera Cruz and end- 
ing with Acapulco, would itself furnish a cata- 



MALARIA. 



417 



logue almost commensurate with its sea coasts, 
and which I must therefore pass over. For the 
same reasons, an enumeration which would 
scarcely end, I must omit all notice of the other 
two great divisions of the world, and terminate a 
chapter which some one will perhaps hereafter 
be tempted to convert into a book : a work 
which, however unamusing to himself the labour 
may be, or however dull to those who may not 
be called on to profit by its advice, will reward 
the author with the conviction at least that he 
has done good to many, and made himself useful 
in his generation. 

If I have here omitted to notice the insalu- 
brious parts of our own country, there were 
many reasons against the attempt. The more 
notorious ones are familiar to every one who has 
the slightest topographical knowledge as to his 
native land ; while, to execute it in such detail as 
to render it extensively, or really useful, would in 
itself demand a small volume. And if, moreover, 
it could scarcely be executed by any one without 
a very minute investigation, and without a pe- 
culiar species of topographical rather than pro- 
perly geographical knowledge, the attempt would 
not only be offensive to many individuals, but 
might possibly prove injurious to some; as I for- 

£ £ 



418 



GEOGRAPHY OF MALARIA. 



merly suggested in excuse for my own suppres- 
sion of necessary evidences. Offence at least 
could scarcely be avoided ; when the phlegmatic 
Middleburgher rouses all the indignation which 
his Boeotian feelings can muster^ to repel the in- 
sulting notion that the three or four thousand 
victims to his September days have been sacrificed 
to his odorous ditches. And whatever proof such a 
topographer might produce, to show that his ob- 
ject was to save human life and diminish human 
suffering, it is more probable that he would be 
contemplated as the satirist of his country, the 
unsolicited censor of sewers and drains ; an 
alarmist in the eye of the world, however willing, 
himself, to bear all, and to wait for the day when, 
whatever scorn he may have endured, his labours 
will have become profitable to those on whose 
account they were undertaken. 



419 



CHAPTER X. 

On the Nature of Malaria, 

If it is a common practice with medical 
writers to produce the largest dissertations on the 
subjects which are the least understood, I fear 
that I must adopt the contrary practice ; and 
thus atone for the emptiness of this chapter by 
its brevity. Perhaps indeed the best, as the 
truest account of the nature of Malaria, would be 
an acknowledgement of utter ignorance : but it 
is at least my duty to say that attempts have been 
made to examine into it : a few attempts, to ba- 
lance a much greater weight of conjecture. 

That the poison of marshes consisted in ani- 
malculae invading the body through the lungs, 
sometimes, I presume, through the stomach also, 
is a speculation which dates as high as Lucretius, 
Varro, and Columella, which seems to have been 
renewed in the days of the microscope, by Kir- 
ch er and some others, and appears, naturally 
enough, to have found favour with Linnaeus. A 
mythology somewhat more remote than it would 
here be convenient to inquire of, found a suffi- 

E E 2 



420 



NATURE OF 



cient reason in the Dogstar ; but whether this 
doctrine gave rise to the malign aspects which 
served the purpose of a cause to the age of as- 
trological philosophy, it is not worth inquiring. 
The chemistry which had not yet succeeded in 
emancipating itself from the planetary influences, 
and to which the two sweeping, and not less un- 
meaning terms, salts and sulphurs stood in lieu 
of the labour of observation and thinking, equally, 
concluded that the poisonous air of marshes con- 
sisted of sulphureous and saline vapours ; and if 
such was a satisfactory explanation to Ramaz- 
zini and many more, authority like that could 
not fail to exert its usual influence. When me- 
chanical philosophy began to apply its doctrines 
to the human body, there was no good reason 
why Hoffman should not conclude that the whole 
secret lay in the diminished elasticity of the air ; 
but this theory, never much respected, seems to 
have bowed before one of much better -fortune, 
which accounted for the whole by the three 
terms, heat, moisture, and putrefaction, duly ex- 
panded and discussed. A theory of much better 
fortune, certainly ; since it is not yet out of 
fashion ; inasmuch as no small number of mo- 
dern physicians, easily satisfied as it may be sup- 
posed, with words, still attribute the^ fevers of 



MALARIA. 



421 



summer in question to heat and moisture alone; 
as moisture and cold are equally satisfactory solu- 
tions of the intermittents of spring. 

A new and a better chemistry very naturally 
induced better philosophers to seek for a new 
chemical theory on this subject; and I believe 
that Volta must be allowed the merit of the first 
suggestions and the first experiments on this 
ground. Naturally also perhaps, these philoso- 
phers sought the poison in question among the 
ascertained chemical gases ; but the honour 
which any one can claim is too small to render it 
necessary to assign to each his gas and his theory. 
It must suffice, in this very brief sketch, to say 
that among these persons, are found the names 
of Baumes, Orfila, Chevreuil, Textoris, Balme ; 
and that the accused gases have been carbonic 
acid, azote, hydrocarburetted gas, hydrophosphu- 
retted gas, hydrosulphuretted gas, and even 
ammonia ; to say nothing of an yet undiscovered 
compound of azote and oxygen, called septon. 

But justice must now be done to those who 
have attempted, by the means of analysis which 
modern chemistry furnishes, to examine the air 
produced by marshes, and to inquire whether it 
did not really contain some peculiar volatile sub- 
stance, or compound and unknown gas, the true 



422 



NATURE OF 



source of the evil ; since I need not say that the 
known ones which have heen enumerated are 
not the poisons in question, inasmuch as they 
can be applied to the body in the laboratory, in 
a much more eiFectual manner than nature can 
ever furnish them, yet without exciting fevers. 

The eudiometrical experiments of Gattoni and 
Moscati produced no results, as might have been 
anticipated : a more rational mode of experi- 
menting, and for a different object, was at- 
tempted by De Lisle, Vauquelin, Julia, Brocchi, 
and others ; and if the problem could have been 
solved by the analytical powers which modern 
chemistry furnishes, we might have expected the 
solution from the hands at least of Vauquelin. 
It is unnecessary to detail failures, and equally so 
to describe the nature of the attempts, though 
rationally conducted. What was considered as 
animal matter, was found, repeatedly, in the con- 
densed vapour or dew, of the grounds in ques- 
tion : but how far this fact may be connected 
with what is sought, we can scarcely conjecture. 
Malaria, like contagion, like odours, remains a 
problem for future chemistry; nor must we 
blame those who have been unable to produce 
results without means. 

Thus must I terminate what I need not dis- 



MALARIA. 423 

CUSS further, by referring to these authors, those 
who may possess any curiosity as to the attempts 
in question : but there remains a portion of this 
subject, obscure as it is, which must not be 
passed over ; Httle satisfactory as it is to inquire 
about the possibihty of modifications in any sub- 
stance, when we are ignorant of the very nature 
of the substance itself, lliat question is, whether 
Malaria can or does vary in its composition or na- 
ture, or, in its qualities ; whether, in different places 
or climates, or as proceeding from different soils 
or substances, it possesses diversities of character. 

It is plain that we have no mode of examining 
this subject but by the road of effects, unless any 
analogy derivable from contagion can be also 
drawn into this service. In as far as any priori 
conclusions of this nature might be suggested, 
from considering the chemical varieties in the 
plants by the decomposition of which it is pro- 
duced, I have said all, as far as I know, which 
could bear on the question ; and it does not lead 
to any satisfactory conclusions. And as I have 
already noticed this subject, when questioning 
whether the effects of Malaria in producing, re- 
spectively, remittent or intermittent, depend on 
the mere quantity in which it is applied, or on 
any pecuhar virulence in its nature, having also 



424 



NATURE OF 



pointed out such collateral causes as might, by 
uniting to its action^ modify its effects on the 
body, there is not much remaining to be said in 
this place. 

We may commence by taking contagion as an 
analogy ; but even here, I dare only suggest, that 
as this chemical compound, produced out of the 
few elements of the animal structure, does pos- 
sess many marked varieties productive of as many 
distinct diseases, it is possible that a compound 
formed of the vegetable elements may be equally 
susceptible of diversities capable of producing the 
different diseases which arise from its action. It 
may indeed be made an objection to this view^ 
that many of these latter disorders pass into each 
other, as if the actions of the body itself, and not 
differences in the poison, were the causes en- 
gaged ; yet they who will meditate on the facts, 
as I dare not explain them here, will see that this 
is not an objection of universal application. And, 
granting any such diversity, even to a moderate 
extent, we might thus learn to explain many facts 
relating to the different action of this poison 
under different circumstances, which have long 
been a source of difficulty to physicians. 

But, after all, we must come to experience ; 
and I shall here state the few facts of any great 



MALARIA. 



425 



importance which I have been able to select as 
bearing on this question ; while I will not again 
renew the inquiry as to the effect of collateral 
causes, since, of this, physicians can easily judge; 
while it will be seen, that, as to some of the enu- 
merated facts, no explanation is afforded by such 
causes. 

If it is as true and as constant as it has been 
gaid, that certain countries have a tendency to 
generate, especially, one mode or variety of marsh 
fever, while, in others, some other variety as ex- 
clusively prevails, it is probable that there really 
are essential varieties of this poison; since we 
cannot easily conceive how mere differences of 
quantity should be so constant, or produce such 
uniform effects ; while we, equally, know not 
how to explain this on any view of differences in 
the predisposing or accessary causes, seeing that 
these must be inconstant in their very nature. 
Thus, it is said, that tertians prevail in Germany, 
and quotidians in Italy ; that, in Hungary, pete- 
chise are so frequent in marsh fever as to be a 
marked peculiarity ; that the fevers of the Pon- 
tine marshes are noted for the shortness of their 
intermissions ; and that Holland is not less re- 
markable for the variety of its types than for the 
slow progress of the diseases. In Spain, as in 



426 



NATURE OF 



Africa and the West Indies, the black vomit and 
the yellowness of the skin are similarly charac- 
teristic symptoms ; in some parts of Italy, apo- 
plexy is particularly common ; just as, with re- 
spect to more remote varieties, there are some 
districts which seem especially to produce Neural- 
gia, as I have remarked elsewhere of South 
Wales, and as is also asserted of certain parts of 
India and Persia. 

I might easily accumulate many more facts of 
this kind ; among which the tendency of Indian 
and African Malaria to affect the liver, and that 
of Walcheren the spleen, in addition to its singu- 
lar effects on the biliary secretion, would not be 
the least remarkable ; as it is also a noted one, 
that in every year, the fevers of this place are 
marked by a combination of symptoms which is 
as constant as it is peculiar. But to terminate, 
certainly not the least curious part of this subject, 
whether it will be considered as a proof of essen- 
tial differences in Malaria or not, I shall end by 
stating from, I believe good, as it is medical autho- 
rity, being that of a French physician, that even 
in almost approximate spots, there are similar 
permanent differences : the fevers of Walcheren 
differing materially from those of Breskcn on the 
other side of the Scheldt, and, in France, those 



MALARIA. 



427 



of Rochefort being as completely distinguished 
from those of the Lyonnais. 

Thus I must terminate an inquiry which I 
have not the means of illustrating further, and 
which must be left to future times and increase 
of knowledge. Yet I must not conclude with- 
out saying, that while some physicians have sup- 
posed that animal matter could take a share in 
the production of Malaria, so as materially to 
modify the character or virulence of the poison, 
I can find no facts brought forward which deserve 
to be taken in evidence. Like the whole of this 
dark question, this also must be left to future in- 
vestigation ; while it is plain that it forms a very 
interesting object of inquiry, both as to the phi- 
losophy of Malaria and its diseases, and as to 
purposes of practical utility. 



42S- 



CHAPTER XL 

On the general effects of Malaria upon the con^ 
stitution of the inhabitants of marshy dis- 
tricts, and on the diseases which seem to he 
produced by it. 

Had I been writing to the people of France or 
Italy, I might have omitted a large portion of 
this chapter, since it could only serve to remind 
such persons of what is far better known to them 
than it can be to me ; but while I am sure that 
such a state of things is scarcely suspected by the 
people of England, however much, as travellers, 
many of them must be interested in the facts, I 
have also reason to believe that it is much less 
known to the medical profession in our own country 
than it ought to be. For the authorities, I might 
refer to a host of authors, Italian and French ; 
but I need not here repeat names, of which the 
most important are quoted in this book for vari- 
ous purposes ; while the facts have been confirm- 
ed to me, partly by living witnesses in whom I 
can place the greatest confidence, and partly by 
my own personal observations. They who may 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY MALARIA. 429 



have travelled with an observant eye, in France, 
Italy, Holland, Sicily, Greece, or America, will 
have little difficulty in recognizing the transcript 
of an original which must often have attracted 
their attention. 

It must not be understood that every one of 
the circumstances, physical and moral, here no- 
ticed, occur in every pernicious district ; since 
their number and intensity are proportioned to 
the quantity or the virulence of the Malaria, and 
to other collateral causes which it must be now 
unnecessary to enumerate ; but France and Italy 
can produce examples, as can also many other 
countries, where the facts are not exaggerated by 
the picture of them here presented. And if 
England is a far more moderate sufferer, it still 
possesses tracts, and includes people, among 
which many of the lighter evils here enumerated 
will be found to exist. Further than this, I need 
not explain what, without some such explana- 
tion, might almost be deemed a caricature, or at 
least a picture overcharged by the imagination : 
while the chapter on the geography of Malaria 
will sufficiently indicate the places where the ex- 
tremes of its pernicious effects will be found. 

That the residence of successive generations in 
a district of this nature produces a degeneracy of 



430 ^ DISEASES PRODUCED BY 

the races, is amply shown in various parts of 
France and Italy ; and never more distinctly than 
when the inhabitants of the marshy plains and 
vallies come into immediate contact with a people 
of the same radical origin and race, inhabiting 
the healthy, mountainous or hilly tracts which 
bound or include these. The stature not only 
becomes reduced, but deformities are frequent ; 
wdiile, anatomically, the bones are found to be 
affected; their extremities in particular being 
unusually large and spongy, and rickets, as a 
positive disease, being also an implicated con- 
sequence. 

The colour of the skin, and the general super- 
ficial aspect of the people in these cases, has 
never failed to attract the attention of even the 
most cursory travellers. The former is sallow, 
or yellow, or else stained with different hues, and, 
in extreme cases, has even a livid appearance : 
while, to a medical examination, it is found to 
pit on pressure ; this condition often amounting 
to absolute oedema, and the muscles being soft, 
yielding, and unelastic. Such persons have often 
the appearance of being fat ; but this, when it 
exists, is wanting in firmness, as if a great part 
of the accumulation consisted of water in the 
cellular membrane. That varices and herniae 



MALARIA. 



431 



should be common in the same circumstances, 
are facts which belong rather to the absolute dis- 
eases that prevail in the marshy districts. It is 
also remarked that the hair is flaccid and the 
beard scanty; while, in the most poisonous re- 
gions of France, it is further asserted that pale 
hair abounds, when, in more healthy places, the 
very same race is noted for the darker tints. A 
dull, languid eye, very often also yellow, is a cir- 
cumstance which has attracted general attention. 

An enlargement of the abdomen, commencing 
sometimes even from the birth, and often rendered 
the more conspicuous from the slenderness and 
emaciation of the limbs, is also a feature which 
no traveller has overlooked ; and it is often in 
itself sufficient to demonstrate the nature of the 
place where these wretched beings are doomed to 
live, or rather, as the inhabitants of the Pontine 
marshes express it, to die. That the very form 
and extent of the liver can often be traced exter- 
nally, by the eye, is an anatomical fact belonging 
to this state of things ; while an investigation 
after death, discovers various diseased structures 
in that organ, in the spleen, and in the mesen- 
teric glands ; together with water in the cellular 
membrane, and a general enlargement of the 
whole lymphatic system. In the Pontine marshes, 



432 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



the residents have the appearance of walking 
spectres ; being often also oedematous all over^ 
and thus dragging on a miserable existence 
through the short term of their wretched lives. 
That the inhabitants of such districts have a late 
puberty and are less prolific than in healthier 
regions^ is a fact which has been assertf^d and 
again contradicted: yet it is one which could 
not excite surprise should it be proved. 

There is nothing in these pernicious countries 
more striking to a cursory traveller^ than the ap- 
pearance of age which occurs at a very early pe- 
riod of life. Even the children are frequently 
wrinkled; and^ in France, in perhaps all the 
worst districts, a young woman, almost even be- 
fore twenty, has the aspect of fifty ; while, in 
men, the age of forty is equivalent to sixty in 
healthier countries, both in appearance and vi- 
gour ; the very few who live to fifty, appearing 
to have arrived at the protracted term of four- 
score. Of personal beauty in females, there ap- 
pears to be little trace at any time ; but whatever 
may have existed is rarely prolonged beyond 
seventeen. And the expression keeps pace with 
all else; being that of unhappiness, stupidity, 
and apathy : an habitual melancholy which no- 
thing can rouse, and an insensibility to almost 



MALARIA. 



433 



every thing which operates on the feelings of 
mankind in generaL A slow and languid speech^ 
a similar languor in the walk and in all the ac- 
tions, indicate equally the condition of the mind 
and of the body in, these wretched countries. 

That the period between thirty-five and fifty is 
the most hazardous and diseased portion of this 
diseased and miserable life, is a very general re- 
mark in all the regions subject to Malaria ; while 
it is not less generally observed, that those who 
survive this period, often live to become old ; 
frequently also recovering a certain portion of the 
health which might have been lost. Of another 
general effect which has been asserted to exist_, it 
seems reasonable to entertain some doubts ; since 
it is an assured fact, that a high degree of nervous 
irritability, both mental and bodily, is a frequent 
attendant upon the chronic condition of the fevers 
of Malaria, The assertion is, that the people in 
question are, generally, little irritable, or even 
sensible ; and sometimes, to such a degree, as 
scarcely to express the feelings of pain, even- 
under surgical operations. 

The condition of the mental faculties, whether 
intellectual or moral, is scarcely less remarkable, 
while it is more interesting : and if there should 
appear any exaggeration as to some particulars, 

F F 



434 DISEASES PRODUCED BY 

or should any special fact, as asserted, depend on 
collateral causes of another nature, the general 
bearing of the whole as related of Italy and 
France, has been confirmed too often by remarks 
of a similar nature, made in America and else- 
where by very competent observers, to leave any 
doubt as to the leading circumstances. 

That apathy which was just noticed as ex- 
pressed in the physiognomy, is a character which 
influences the whole conduct of these degraded 
and unfortunate beings ; often proceeding to 
such a degree that they are scarcely elevated 
above the beasts in point of feehng. Seeking 
solitude, shunning society and amusements alike, 
without affections, without interest in any thing, 
they make no exertions to better their condition ; 
not even to avoid the sources of danger which 
surround them, or to take the most common pre- 
cautions that are pointed out : while, attached to 
the soil, from habit or indolence rather than from 
regard, they will not be convinced of its nature 
or dangers ; fatalists in practice and even in be- 
lief, and refusing to admit that there is any other 
lot in life than that which is their own. 

That the general intellectual faculties are de- 
graded, is an universal remark ; while, in many 
places, and very notedly in the Maremma of Tus- 



MALARIA. 



435 



cany^ it is observed that absolute idiotism is com- 
mon. That such a condition is a frequent result 
of marsh fevers^ and very particularly under im- 
proper treatment^ is a fact which I must notice 
in the medical part of this work : but even inde- 
pendently of this, such debility of the intellect 
seems to be the produce of the insensible action 
of this poison on the nervous system : a circum- 
stance that indeed might naturally be expected 
from physiological considerations connected with 
the general influence which Malaria exerts on the 
body. And that this condition is even propa- 
gated, seems, further, fully proved ; so that an 
universal degeneracy of mind and body both, ap- 
pears to be the certain lot of those races which 
a combination of unfortunate circumstances have 
placed in countries that seem to have been in- 
tended rather for the habitations of reptiles and 
insects than for those of man. 

Considering that various glandular affections 
are the produce of Malaria, it seems an object 
deserving of further inquiry, whether that hither- 
to mysterious disease also, the Cretinage of the 
Valais, may not possess some connection with 
the existence of this poison ; since assuredly no 
explanation has yet been offered respecting it. I 
cannot indeed find among the authors whom I 

FF 2 



436 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



have consulted, any facts to confirm an opinion 
which is only offered as a hint for inquiry ; and 
considering that analogous effects, as well as 
many other diseases unattended by absolute 
marsh fever, are produced by the gradual action 
of Malaria, it is at least a subject deserving the 
attention of those who may have an opportunity 
of investigating it, whether for confirmation or 
contradiction. It is not impossible that those 
writers who have attributed the disease of the 
Valais to the peculiarity of its atmosphere rather 
than to the other causes so often discussed, may 
have taken analogous views to this : though it 
must still be obvious that the attachment of the 
Goitre at least, to mountainous or hilly regions, 
all over the world, is a difficulty from which we 
cannot easily extricate ourselves. 

Be the explanation of this latter disease how- 
ever what it may, it is an observation as old as 
physic itself, that inferiority of the intellectual 
faculties is the inheritance of those who reside in 
marshy countries, and in a dense, foggy atmos- 
phere. If Hippocrates attributes to the effect of 
a salutary air, the very powers of the intellect 
themselves, the well known proverb respecting 
Boeotian abilities was not probably without a 
foundation : while, without apparently borrowing 



MALARIA. 



437 



from Greece^ a similar opinion has not been less 
extensively entertained in our own days, and, I 
need scarcely say, applied to Holland. 

With respect to the moral condition of the 
people in those unhealthy districts, the picture 
drawn by Monfalcon, is frightful ; but as I can- 
not support it by sufficient evidence from other 
quarters, it must rest on his credibility ; while it 
must also be questioned how far moral and poli- 
tical circumstances unconnected with disease or 
its cause, may be additional agents in the pro- 
duction of these effects. Not to dwell on this 
disgusting picture, I must content myself with 
naming abortion, infanticide, universal libertin- 
ism, drunkenness, want of religion, gross super- 
stitions, as the leading features ; besides which, 
it is further said, and even proved by the police 
reports, that while murders are common, a large 
proportion of the cases are those of premeditated 
and cautious assassination, by poison or other- 
wise : all the vices, says my authority, being of a 
mean and not of a bold character. But, while 
averse to quotation, I am also desirous to refer 
to a work from which I have been enabled to 
confirm many of the conclusions which had long 
presented themselves to myself, and whence I 
have recently derived a support which I had not 



438 



DISEASE^ PRODUCED BY 



found in the Italian writers on this subject; a 
statement of facts^ as well as of opinions or con- 
clusions^ which satisfies me that I had not misled 
myself in those which were, not merely formed, 
but committed to paper and made ready for pub- 
lication, long before his book came into my 
Imnds. Coincident opinions, thus independently 
formed, carry with them a weight which cannot 
fail to strike those who have attended to the na- 
ture of evidence. 

Of the specific and definite diseases which are 
the produce of Malaria, or which are endemic in 
marshy districts, some are now notorious to the 
whole world, a few appear to me to deserve or 
require the place which they have not yet receiv- 
ed, as its frequent if not exclusive produce, and 
a few others must rest on the assertions or testi- 
mony of the authors by whom they have been 
thus enumerated. 

Fever, continuous or remitting, of an endless 
diversity of character in dijOPerent countries and 
seasons, or, generally, in difi:erent circumstances, 
stands prominent in this fearful list: itself the 
source, either directly or through its conse- 
quences, of by far the greatest mortality in such 
countries, and the further cause, as it has been 
rudely computed, of more than half of the na- 



MALARIA. 



439 



tural mortality of the human race. To this may 
be added intermitting fever, not radically distinct, 
and almost equally various in its appearances : 
and those varieties, in both kinds, depending 
partly on original or essential differences in the 
simple disease, and partly on a combination with 
local or incidental and accessary effects, which 
are often so conspicuous or important as to ex- 
ceed in consequence the radical disorder, or even 
to obscure it ; and, in some instances, further, so 
completely, as to have been a source of serious 
error. 

Of these modifications, I could not here even 
give a catalogue without medical descriptions in 
considerable detail; scarcely admissible in a work 
of this nature as far as it may become a subject 
of popular reading. I may only remark, that it 
comprises numerous disorders, the real nature, as 
well as the causes of which have been entirely, 
and almost universally, misapprehended in our 
own country ; though somewhat better known, 
yet still but vaguely and partially to foreign 
physicians. And if, from being thus misunder- 
stood, they have been maltreated, causing a vast 
mass of suffering which might have been 
avoided or prevented, it was the course of a long 
reflection on this subject, and an investigation of 



440 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



these diseases which were the primary inducements 
to the production of the present work ; since 
hut for this, even the essay which I am now ahout 
to terminate^ would never have been written. 

Dysentery, cholera, and diarrhoea may be here 
united as constituting another division of the dis- 
eases of marshy countries; these disorders also 
appearing under different aspects, whether from 
original differences or from combination. Of the 
vast importance of these, it is superfluous to 
speak in detail. The mortal power and extent 
of dysentery, in military service at least, is but 
too well known. The influence of cholera con- 
cerns every one : and if the cholera of India, 
lately so celebrated for its widely destructive ef- 
fects, is, as I believe it to be, but a produce of 
this cause, there are few diseases in the history 
of physic, which would better deserve a place in 
this enumeration of those pestilences which are 
the consequence of this wide-wasting poison. 

The more serious incidents and consequences 
of these most prominent disorders require also 
to be named ; especially as, from their chronic 
character and their frequency, they constitute, to 
an ordinary eye, the chief features of disease by 
which the people in these unhappy countries are 
tormented and destroyed. Apoplexy, palsy, vis- 



MALARIA. 



441 



ceral obstructions^ and dropsy, under many va- 
rieties, are the most prominent of these derange- 
ments ; but it is the two last, and perhaps the 
visceral affections chiefly, which excite the atten- 
tion in those pestiferous regions, or rather, vrhich 
produce those effects on the appearance of the 
unfortunate inhabitants that have attracted every 
eye. This is the mark which is stamped on those 
fated people, condemned to misery and death 
through faults not their own : tlie beacon, which 
announces to the traveller the lands of pestilence 
and mortality, which warns him from the seduc- 
tions by which Nature, through all her produc- 
tions but man, that only production " which 
dwindles there," would tempt his curiosity or his 
stay. 

But to those diseases many authors are inclined 
to add the mesenteric affection, worms, ulcers of 
the legs, and even elephantiasis ; together with 
rickets, scrofula, phthisis, scurvy, and chlorosis. 
If the Pellagra of the Italian Alps is different 
from scurvy, it will also require a place here ; 
but it may be questioned whether many of the 
disorders of this formidable catalogue are not 
rather the results of a combination of circum- 
stances easily conjectured, than the proper con- 
sequences of marsh fever and dysentery, or the 



442 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



produce of the direct action of Malaria. If, as 
has also been said^ the bronchocele is really the 
produce of the same regions and causes, the hint 
which I have just suggested respecting Cretinage 
may not be so questionable as it might appear 
at first sight. But respecting a disease which, 
personally unacquainted with as an endemic, I 
cannot pretend to understand, I must observe 
that the authors vvliom I quote, distinguish the 
well known Goitre of alpine countries from the 
one in question, which is considered of a differ- 
ent nature, and often of an acute character ; so 
acute at times, and further so epidemic, as, in 
some instances, to have brought whole regiments 
to the hospital in the course of a few days. The 
frequency of hernia and varix was formerly no- 
ticed : and as far as the writers from whom I 
quote this mortal catalogue can be depended on, 
I may conclude it with angina, catarrh reaching 
to peripneumony, asthma, dyspepsia of an invete- 
rate nature, and what is called oedema of the lungs. 

Of very much of all this I have no personal 
knowledge : and I do not think it necessary, nor 
perhaps proper, to offer such criticisms on it as 
will be tolerably obvious to physicians ; but I 
have a considerable addition to propose, in the 
disorders which I have here ranked under the 



MALARIA, 



443 



term neuralgia ; a list which, together with its 
consequences, forming a great variety of diseases, 
it would be impossible to give with any pro- 
priety, for the reasons already assigned in speak- 
ing of intermittent and remittent fevers. My 
medical readers will probably seek it at the end 
of the subsequent volumes, where it was neces- 
sarily placed ; while for others, should such there 
be, I must here say a few words in explanation, 
that I may not leave this account of the disorders 
produced by Malaria so imperfect as it would 
otherwise be. 

The Tic douloureux, to use the popular name, 
is well known to be one of the most painful, as it 
is one of the most inveterate diseases in the whole 
nosology ; the torment, often, of a long life, and, 
too often, as incurable as tormenting, while, from 
whatever causes, appearing to be increasing every 
day. An attention to this subject for a very long 
course of years, has proved to me, that, from 
whatever other causes it may sometimes arise, it 
is one of the disorders produced by Malaria, and 
that moreover it is very often a mode of inter- 
mittent fever ; a chronic disease of this nature, 
attended by a peculiar local affection. 

Further, under this leading disorder of the ner- 
vous system, the same course of observation and 



444 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



experience has induced me to arrange a variety 
of painful affections formerly very differently 
considered^ but of which a few have recently been 
thus classed : hence causing me to constitute 
Neuralgia as a generic affection^ or a subgenus 
of intermittent, and the head of a very extensive 
list of diseases, hitherto much misunderstood, 
and with consequences which will be fully appa- 
rent in the medical portion of this work. Such, 
not to enumerate the whole, are Sciatica, Tooth- 
ach, Headach, together with other affections, 
painful, or nervous, which have been often con- 
sidered mysterious, and of which the cure, like 
that of all the preceding, has consequently been 
difficult or impossible. Thus also, and nader 
evidence which W^ill be, as I trusty made satis- 
factory, it includes many inflammatory disorders ; 
chiefly chronic, which have beenrtoo often the tor- 
ment of patients and the opprobrium of physi- 
cians. And if I have just noticed paralytic and 
apopletic affections as appertaining to the dis- 
eases of Malaria, and in connexion with marsh 
fever, they will also be found to be sequels of 
Neuralgia; as are, under various and peculiar 
circumstances, fatuity, and even mania. 

Thus, then. Neuralgia, like intermittent or 
remittent fever, takes a principal place in the dis- 



MALARIA* 



445 



orders produced by Malaria^ or by marshes ; 
while it forms an entire and most important class^ 
the causes of which have hitherto been unknown^ 
and comprises numerous and serious diseases, of 
which even the generic character has been unas- 
signed, and the nature and treatment almost in- 
variably mistaken. 

These therefore form the last division of the 
disorders dependent on Malaria; while entirely 
unnoticed as such by foreign or former writers, 
even by those who have treated especially of this 
subject. And if I could not therefore avoid 
pointing them out in this place, I regret that 1 
dare not here do more, and that I must inevitably 
refer to the medical portion of these volumes for 
that which forms so large a part of them. I 
shall only add, that if the consideration of the 
neglected varieties of intermittent was a main 
inducement to the production of this work, it was 
the study of Neuralgia which originally led to 
the whole inquiry ; to that primary course of ob- 
servation and reflection, of which the remaining 
results will be submitted to the medical reader in 
the subsequent volumes. To proceed to another 
branch of this subject. 

As dependent on this state of things, it will be 
interesting to give a sketch, which can however 



446 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



be but brief and slender^ of the state of mortality 
in some of these unhealthy comitries, as com- 
pared with others : a subject which it would be a 
matter of no small curiosity to investigate in 
greater detail than I can afford to do in an essay 
of this nature. 

It might perhaps be anticipated that under 
such circumstances the population would gra- 
dually so diminish as to produce sensible politi- 
cal consequences, or even to be exterminated al- 
together. Thus it indeed certainly would, were 
it not for immigration ; since, as will presently be 
seen, the deaths far exceed the births : and in 
reality, in certain parts of Italy, if the inhabitants 
have not literally been destroyed or exterminated, 
a partial result of this kind, added to emigration 
or abandonment, has produced, as is well known, 
the effect of absolute depopulation. 

But in many places, and in the w^orst parts of 
France very conspicuously, the value of these 
lands for pasturage, for agriculture, or in fishing, 
affords a constant temptation to new and healthy 
settlers, destined in no long time to run the same 
course, and again to be replaced by fresh adven- 
turers, to whom land or labour is always open 
in consequence of the extraordinary mortality ; 
while the stupid and apathetic character of the 



MALARIA. 



447 



fatalists by whom such tracts are inhabited as 
their birth places, prevents them from leaving a 
soil which they scarcely will believe to be un- 
wholesome ; thus giving the semblance of that 
blind attachment to their native marshes, which 
poets, as bhnd, have lauded, as poets use, and in 
other cases than this. 

On this subject also, it is a preliminary remark 
worth making, that no where are marriages more 
numerous, more blindly entered on, and, very na- 
turally, more frequently repeated ; since, on the 
doctrine of chances, the condition of widowhood, 
on one or the other side, cannot fail to be fre- 
quent. More women, it is true, are re-married 
than men ; as, from obvious circumstances, the 
mortality on the latter side is greater ; nor is it 
uncommon for one woman to have had three, 
four, or even five husbands. On the other hand, 
it has sometimes been known that one man has 
married that number of wives : the tale being 
told in Bresse (if I am not mistaken) of three 
brothers who had married, between them, fifteen 
women. This system of survivorship, however 
the balance may lie, is explained by the fact, that 
the polygamous individual is commonly a native 
of the country, and the mortal associates immi- 
grants from healthier districts : and thus has it 



448 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



been said, not only in France, but among our- 
selves in Lincolnshire, that speculators on such 
survivorship choose their partners from the 
healthy neighbouring lands, and thus, of either 
sex, often accumulate the fortunes of successive 
victims. In addition to the natural temptations 
arising from vacancy, whether of wives, husbands, 
farms, or labour, I need scarcely perhaps remark, 
that such marriages are often, in addition, the 
result, not merely of a prevailing libertinism be- 
longing to the depravity of the moral character 
and the fatalism of these countries, but of that 
recklessness which is so noted an attendant of 
poverty everywhere, and very familiarly, in Ire- 
land ; and which, in circumstances, analogous, 
though far from parallel, leads the seaman over 
whom death is impending from the surrounding 
rocks, to plunder and forget himself in in- 
toxication. 

If the few statements which I can here afford 
to give respecting the mortality in question, are 
apparently at variance, it is chiefly perhaps be- 
cause that varies itself, materially, in different 
places ; while some have derived their results 
from one country or district, and some from ano- 
ther. For the present purpose, it is unnecessary 
to be accurate or critical ; and a few remarks of 



MALARIA. 



449 



this nature will suffice. Whoever desires to know 
fully these computations and their grounds, can 
easily refer to the authors whom I have here 
quoted^ and to many others whose names are fa- 
miliar to those acquainted with political arith- 
metic. 

The mean annual mortality in these cases^, as 
computed by Dr. Price, gives an average of 
twenty-five years of life, founded certainly not on 
the most unfavourable facts ; while Condorcet, 
from other, and apparently worse situations, 
places it as low as eighteen : a conclusion in 
which some exaggeration may be suspected, un- 
less he had selected some peculiarly unfavourable 
case. In Bresse in the Lyonnais, it has been 
computed as varying from twenty to twenty-two. 
These are examples enough, perhaps ; and it will 
be remembered that a mean term of life in the 
countries of Europe not subject to the plague of 
Malaria, is found to extend froin forty-five, up- 
wards, to a period, as to our own country, which 
has nowj and assuredly had for some time past, 
extended to a considerably higher average. 

With respect to the extreme term of individual 
life in such cases, it is stated by many writers, 
that in Egypt, and in Georgia and Virginia, in all 
the marshy situations, it does not exceed forty ; 

G G 



450 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



exceptions being of course understood for specific 
cases: while Jackson asserts that at Petersbo. 
rough in the latter province^ a native and inha- 
bitant rarely obtains the age of twenty-one. In 
France, Rozier places this extreme limit, for those 
portions of Britany which adjoin the Loire, at 
fifty ; at which age the individual who has 
escaped thus long, equals a man of eighty in 
healthier countries. In various parts of Italy, 
Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Wallachia, Moldavia, 
Hungary, life, whether computed in this last or 
in the preceding manner, presents a still more 
unfavourable aspect ; though perhaps under the 
circumstances of misery beneath which this bur- 
den is borne, that shortness is a blessing rather 
than an evil. But not to protract this manner of 
contemplating so fearful a picture, I may now 
place the same facts in a different light, that tra- 
vellers who may interest themselves in this ques- 
tion, may see how, under one or other of these 
modes, they may direct their inquiries. 

In the Commune of Chatillon, (Orleannais,) in 
ten years, there were 1845 births and 2046 deaths ; 
or the annual average was 184 of the former to 
204 of the latter nearly ; giving an unfavourable 
proportion of nearly one to five. This is an ex- 
ample of a very unhealthy district, though far 



MALARIA. 



451 



inferior, still, to many parts of the countries 
which 1 have named above ; and if the general 
probability of deaths is taken at 28 in 1000, it 
rises here to 51. Similarly, in Brenne (Berri,) 
Sologne (Orleannais,) and Bresse (Lyonnais,) 
the deaths far exceed the births ; though Mon- 
falcon, from whom I have borrowed this general 
fact, has not given the calculations. In the latter 
district, however, the registry shows that the term 
of individual life, considered as longevity, ranges 
from thirty-five to fifty ; while the survivorships 
at this latter limit are very few, as it is, there, 
extreme and rare old age. How all these pro- 
portions stand in the Maremma of Tuscany, 
in the neighbourhood of Rome, on the Calabrian 
coast, in the Mantuan, at Syracuse, and in many 
other parts of Italy and Sicily now familiar to so 
many of our countrymen, I need not say, as they 
are generally known to all who have had any 
communication with those regions. 

A few further facts, from the unhealthy tracts 
of France, resting on the authority quoted above, 
will complete all that I dare take room for in 
this sketch ; while by placing in these several 
lights the effects of the Malaria, the extreme im- 
portance of the whole question will become more 
obvious to those who, living in comparative se- 

G g2 



452 DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



curity, are commonly as incredulous and igno- 
rant as they are thankless for the better lot which 
they have not so exclusively merited. 

In spite of immigration^ as well as of a rise in 
the value of lands, the population of Sologne 
(Orleannais) has diminished two-thirds in the 
space of a century and a half. The town of Vil- 
lars in Burgundy, within a century, has been re- 
duced from eight hundred houses to a wretched 
line of a few cottages ; and the same kind of re- 
duction has taken place in many other towns 
and villages in this most miserable country. In 
ten communes, the diminution has been one- 
eighth in twenty-two years, while the general 
wealth, agriculture, and population of France at 
large have been undergoing a rapid and marked 
increase. 

I might easily have extended this particular 
set of facts by similar notices as to many other 
portions of the same country, so little suspected 
hitherto by English emigrants ; or rather, I 
may say, so little suspected even to this hour, 
that the catalogue of their sufferings from that 
cause, from a rash choice of residence chiefly, 
would in itself m^ike a formidable appearance. I 
might equally point out the similar diminutions, 
often the absolute extermination or abandonment. 



MALARIA. 



453 



of many portions of Italy ; but these are so well 
known to every one who has even the most com- 
mon reading respecting that unfortunate coun- 
try, that it would be merely to repeat what all the 
world knows ; while also, in other places and for 
other purposes, I have had occasion to allude to 
those facts, and, very particularly, to describe the 
singular and fearful condition of Rome. 

I will therefore terminate this very brief sketch 
of the general effects of Malaria on the residents 
in marshy or unhealthy regions ; a subject which 
might well be extended to twenty times the 
length, with instruction perhaps for which my 
plan allows me no room, and with amusement, I 
doubt not, in which I must not indulge. This 
short notice will have answered its purpose if it 
shall assist in enlightening or convincing the 
ignorant and incredulous ; in holding up to their 
eyes the great enemy of the human race, the very 
Destroying Angel to whom the task of keeping 
man within due bounds has been especially as- 
signed ; if it shall convince them that the subject 
which I have here brought before them is worthy 
of their knowledge, inasmuch as they are not, 
even in this more fortunate island, exempt from 
danger and from mortality through this cause, 
and inasmuch as it is in their power, by care 



454 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



founded on that knowledge, to diminish or avert 
the evils which it produces among ourselves, and, 
however little that may at present be suspected, 
in no small proportion. 

It may be thought a question of mere curiosity 
whether other animals than man can be affected 
by Malaria, or suffer diseases analogous to those 
which it produces in us : but the solution of any 
question of this nature is valuable, since we can 
never foresee what light may not be thrown on 
physic as a science, from facts relating to the dis- 
eases of the inferior tribes. It is to France and 
Italy chiefly that we owe what information there 
is on this subject ; since, like every thing else 
appertaining to the history and effects of Malaria, 
it has been neglected in England ; though I must 
make one exception at least in favour of Mr. 
Royston, who alone seems to have been led to 
make the same remarks in Cambridgeshire. The 
general fact is, that cattle, or animals of different 
kinds, do become sickly or diseased in the same 
situations which produce the diseases of Malaria 
in the human race, and that the consequences are 
as resembling or analogous as they could be un- 
der the differences which exist. 

On this subject, and as it relates to Italy, Lan- 
cisi is one of the strongest as of the earliest au- 



MALARIA. 



465 



thorities. He remarks, as many others have also 
done, that in the Roman states, in marshy places 
and in summer, epidemics, or epizootics, are 
common among the cattle ; and though the de- 
scriptions of the disease are not very satisfactory, 
the dissections, hy his account, display exactly 
the same appearances as are observed in men who 
die of marsh fevers. This fact, of the appear- 
ances on dissection, has been confirmed by vari- 
ous observers in the Milanese ; and also in Egypt, 
in Hungary, in St. Domingo and Gaudaloupe, as 
well as in France, at Rochelle, and in Auvergne 
and Roussillon. The connection between seasons 
of peculiarly severe epidemic marsh fevers in 
man, and of epizootics in cattle, is particularly 
pointed out by Bailly, of the year 1812 at Aries ; 
and in this instance, the inflammatory affections 
and the subsequent disorganizations proved to be 
the same in the animals as in the people dying 
of the fever. 

Analagous observations have been frequently 
made in Italy : and not to quote more than is 
necessary, the years 1711, 1738, 1745, 1772, 
1783, and 1795, are among those which have been 
particularly recorded for epizootics among cattle ; 
each of them being also noted seasons of epide- 
mic fever, or of the prevalence of Malaria. Fur- 



456 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



ther, they all occurred in the months of August, 
September, and October, and were also confined 
to the marshy or unhealthy districts ; while it 
was in addition remarked, that the cattle intro- 
duced from the hilly and healthy countries were 
those that suifered most, as men are known to do 
under similar circumstances, and that, very par- 
ticularly, those oxen were most frequently and 
severely affected which had been employed in 
ploughing up the pasture lands ; an operation 
which, as I have remarked in another place, is 
generally dangerous to the human race, disen- 
gaging, or giving rise to the production of 
Malaria. 

The fever or plague of black cattle, not un^ 
common in certain parts of France, if rare with 
us, is attributed very generally, by the veterina- 
rians of that country, to Malaria ; and of remark- 
able instances of this nature, one is noticed by 
Chaignebrun, occurring in summer, in a marshy 
tract in the forest of Crecy, which destroyed 
about three-fifths of the cattle attacked ; the 
number of the last being nearly 500, and the dis- 
ease being described as a typhus with effusions 
into the thorax and abdomen.. A similar fact is 
related' by Petit, of Auvergne ; and it is remarked 
by Guersent, that all the fevers of this nature oc- 



MALARIA. 



457 



cur in summer and in marshy situations. In 
other districts^ a similar fever in cattle has been 
found attended by inflammations of the lungs, 
and in horses, of the throat ; while dropsy, pro- 
bably from a previous fever of the same nature, 
is common in sheep. These latter animals are 
said to be subject, in the Orleannais, in the de- 
partment of the Loire and Cher, already quoted 
as one of the most pestiferous tracts in France, 
to such frequent epizootics, that it is necessary to 
renew the races every ten years, while they dege- 
nerate from the moment of their introduction, 
and present at all times a miserable appearance. 

To such a cause we may also probably refer 
the asthenia ossifraga, as it was called by Paulli, 
occurring among sheep in Smoland, and by him 
attributed to their eating the Anthericum (Nar- 
thecium) ossifragum ; though Linnseus has re- 
jected the whole as a popular tale. I need not 
say to botanists that this is a native of marshy 
soils, and that the general views here held out 
will probably explain, in a similar manner, the 
popular opinion of the production of diseases, in 
the same animals from feeding on the Hydroco- 
tyle vulgaris ; a plant which, it so happens, they 
will not eat. 

Independently of absolute fevers and death, 



458 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



the general health of the cattle and sheep in all 
these marshy districts seems to suffer in a man- 
ner analogous to what it does in men ; nor can 
that be ascribed to want of food, nor even to im- 
proper food ; as the pastoral, and very often the 
agricultural value of these poisonous districts is 
considerable, often indeed temptingly high. In 
Brenne, (Bas Berry,) the cattle are weak, stunted, 
dull, and, as it is said ricketty ; while it is re- 
marked that they are subject to a chronic state of 
fever, attended with a slight inflammatory condi- 
tion of the bowels and lungs. In the Orleannais, 
black cattle are difficult to rear, and are stunted 
in their growth, degenerating, like sheep, in the 
first generation ; and this is remarked of other 
places, by Bosc, both with regard to cattle and 
horses, though the latter animal seems to offer 
greater powers of resistance to the poison, 
thriving often where sheep die. It is also re- 
marked that in such districts, the animals in ques- 
tion, and the sheep in particular, are less prolific. 
It is further observed in France generally, that 
the flesh of animals in such situations is bad, or 
flavourless and watery ; and this fact is confirmed 
by what occurred in Sicily, well known to our 
armies when occupying that island ; namely, that 
the beef was similarly bad if procured in the 



MALARIA. 



459 



country, bat that when the Sicilian cattle were 
transported to Malta for a few months, it became 
excellent. 

Such are the facts best ascertained as to the 
influence of Malaria on the agricultural animals; 
and they seem to leave little doubt that its action 
on them is similar to what it is on the human 
race, as far at least as relates to the production of 
continuous, or remittent, and autumnal fever, 
with the usual topical acute affections and chronic 
consequences : to which we may probably add a 
chronic fever, with, not improbably, obscure or 
tedious disorganization, or deterioration of func- 
tions, similar also to w^hat happens in man ; pro- 
ductive of degeneracy and general ill health. If 
it has been said that geese suffer from feeding in 
noxious marshes, and that the disorder in this 
case is an enlargement of the liver, the fact, if 
true, will present another interesting analogy ; 
but I am not sufficiently satisfied with the evi- 
dence, to lay any stress on it. The curious in 
eating may inquire whether the celebrity of the 
livers of the Ravenna geese in ancient times was 
connected with this fact : if indeed it be a fact. 

This, as far as relates to the kinds of animals 
affected by Malaria, seems to be the sum of what 
is generally known ; but I have received infor- 



460 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



mation of a similar nature from the West Indies^ 
respecting another animal, so decided as to the 
asserted fact, and from so many different sources, 
that there seems no reason to doubt, either the 
mere truth or its accuracy. It is, that immedi- 
ately before the season of fevers, the dogs be- 
come diseased, as from a fever, or that the epi- 
demic appears in them before it is established 
among the people : and further, that a season of 
disease of unusual severity is always expected, in 
Dominica particularly, whenever the sickness and 
mortality among the dogs is unusually great. I 
have obtained no specific account of the nature 
of this fever, though it may be conjectured that 
it is a continuous one, like that which, in the 
same circumstances, commits such ravages on 
cattle. But I cannot persuade myself to omit 
one case of the occurrence of a regular tertian 
intermittent in a dog, because I cannot doubt the 
medical testimony on which it rests, particularly 
as the persons in question had no interest in the 
fact : a suspicion which might easily attach to a 
writer on such a subject. He who relates simply 
the conviction of others, removes at least from 
himself, the claim to credibility. The surgeons 
in question were those of the island of Guernsey, 
to whom the animal was submitted for cxamina- 



MALARIA. 



461 



tion ; and as the disease continued for some years, 
the cold paroxysm taking place always at three 
o'clock, there was ample opportunity of verifi- 
cation. 

If this case confirms the observations of Mr. 
Royston as to the occurrence of true intermittents 
in the agricultural animals, so is it confirmed by 
those very interesting remarks ; and it is not im- 
probable that if more attention were paid to this 
subject, if there were more such observers, inter- 
mittent would be found not an uncommon epi- 
zootic, or endemic in cattle, confirming the ana- 
logy already pointed out in the case of autumnal 
remittent or continuous fever. 

On this subject also it is not unworthy of ob- 
servation, that the remarkable disease of the liver 
in sheep, commonly called the rot, is the produce 
of wet lands, and very pointedly, in Lincolnshire, 
of those fen lands which also generate Malaria ; 
while it does not occur in dry situations, and is, 
further, cured by removing the diseased animals 
to such places. In France it is believed to be the 
produce of the Malaria of marshy lands ; though it 
may be too much to say that the rot is a disorder 
so produced in all cases ; but while considerable 
ignorance exists as to its true nature or causes, 
and while the different ones which have been as- 



462 



DISEASED PRODUCED BY 



signed for it are either trifling or unfounded^ 
there is at least nothing to oppose to such a sup- 
position, and the question remains open to in- 
quiry. It is far from impossible that the poison- 
ous atmosphere which acts on man in producing 
so many diseases^ should also act similarly on 
animals ; on the contrary, we should have de- 
cided that this was a general probability^ had not 
experience shown how many inheritances of this 
nature man possesses to -their exclusion. But as 
there is no law which rules that man and animals 
shall not have a common disease, and as there 
are instances in abundance of the reverse, we are 
far from having any right to assume, that, in the 
instance alluded to, that poison which acts so 
widely and severely on man, shall not also exert 
a corresponding, or possibly a dilFerent, but a 
morbid action, on some one or more of the infe- 
rior animals. With respect indeed both to this 
disease and to the fevers of black cattle, I am the 
more confirmed in the opinions here stated, from 
the answers to some inquiries which I have re- 
cently made in Lincolnshire. The general fact 
as stated in those is, that the several disorders 
here noticed used to be very common before the 
drainage of the fens, but that they are now 
scarcely known ; and how important therefore 



MALARIA. 



463 



the knowledge of Malaria must be, even in rural 
economy, is too obvious to require another word. 

But to the disgrace of physic as of rural eco- 
nomy, to the disgrace indeed of public economy 
and of an enlightened and busy age, the diseases 
of animals are almost utterly unknown, as dis- 
eases should be known^ with some slender excep- 
tions as to the horse ; while, independently of 
the merely economical question in this case, the 
very extraordinary epizootics v/hich have been 
noticed at different times form a most interesting 
object of scientific inquiry. These sweeping 
disorders, sometimes possibly proving the pro- 
duction of contagion, assuredly prove at least the 
production of what must be called a Malaria, for 
want of another term ; since, if we except the 
case of food, that is, of noxious food or of defi- 
ciency, on no other principle that we can con- 
ceive, but that of an atmospheric and respired 
poison, can an epidemic or epizootic exist ; the 
case also of casually abounding inflammations 
being of course excepted. And if such is the 
general cause, it remains to be investigated whe- 
ther such Malarias are produced from land, like 
our own, and how ; and whether also that very 
species which to us is so poisonous, may not, 
under particular circumstances, operate equally 



464 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



on some or other of the inferior animals, though 
with results as to the form of the disease, of a 
different nature. 

It would be out of place however to pursue 
this very remarkable and much neglected sub- 
ject of Epizootics ; though even as it relates to 
the wild animals, it interests us in an economical 
view : seeing that it is a probably assisting cause, 
as well as inequality of reproduction, in the fre- 
quent disappearance or diminution of particular 
species, in the sea as well as on the land ; a fact 
in which we are often deeply concerned. That 
such diseases have occurred, and sometimes in- 
deed have been frequently repeated, even within 
recent recollection, in cattle, horses, sheep, cats, 
bees, leeches, dogs, and more, is sufficient to show 
how much they concern us ; and that I have, in 
my own narrow observation, found that extensive 
epizootics or seasons of extraordinary mortality 
have occurred in seals, in whitings, and I think 
in some other fishes, and in sea-gulls, (the kitti- 
wake), while it is a proof of their extent in the 
animal kingdom, may also serve to explain many 
of those revolutions in the numbers of peculiar 
species, even in fishes, of which we have long 
been amply sensible in the results, without con- 
sidering the causes ; as it may also probably aid 



MALARIA. 



465 



in explaining similar and far more noted revolu- 
tions in the insect tribes, often of even more im- 
portance to us than changes in the distribution 
or numbers of the more obvious or larger ani- 
mals. But as I must not here pursue this sub- 
ject, I shall content myself with suggesting, that 
while the study of these animal diseases is, in it- 
self and abstractedly, most necessary, it is not 
impossible that a future acquaintance with them 
and with their causes, may tend in time to throw 
light on Malaria as it affects us, even should our 
own Malaria, if I may so call it, be a distinct 
variety, incapable of acting on any animal but man. 

But there is one circumstance on which I must 
here insist, before I conclude this essay, and with 
which I shall terminate what I have to oifer on 
Malaria, or rather, what I think sufficient for the 
purposes which I had in view ; utility ; the pre- 
vention, and, in some measure, the cure also of 
disease. It is true that I have had occasion to 
touch on it more than once ; but I consider it 
too important not to be brought fully and fairly 
before the reader, that he may at least bestow his 
own careful consideration on it, though he should 
not choose to agree with me. It is, in reality, 
of the greatest importance, because a great por- 
tion of the entire question as to Malaria rests on 
it ; that is, in as far as we propose to turn our 

H H 



466 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



knowledge to purposes of utility, whether as to 
the prevention of the diseases originating in this 
cause, or their cure. 

If, of an effect, or of many effects, there is but 
one cause, we have attained a mastery by know- 
ing that, which becomes materially reduced in 
value should there be more than one : while 
should we even suspect additional causes that we 
cannot prove, there is excited a want of confi- 
dence in our philosophical principles, which ma- 
terially interferes with the results that we might 
otherwise have derived from them. It is there- 
fore most essential to ascertain, if that indeed be 
possible, that the various diseases attributed to 
. Malaria are really produced by that cause and by 
no other ; or that, being an unquestioned cause 
of the fevers which occur in certain situations, it 
is also the sole one. 

I need scarcely commence by saying that he 
who desires to prove this, has undertaken a task 
which is not merely difficult, but, in a strict 
sense, impracticable : not only because to prove 
a negative is almost always an insurmountable 
difficulty in the less accurate sciences, but because 
there are to be encountered prejudices and habits, 
as firmly as they are anciently rooted ; and not 
the less inveterately subjects of belief that they 
are utterly void of demonstration, or even of 



MALARIA. 



467 



proofs of the lowest order. In deficiency there- 
fore of direct evidence or demonstration, there is 
no resource but to approximate the facts in a 
simple and logical order, and to trust their effect 
to those whose philosophical habits empower 
them to weigh moral probabilities ; since, of that 
nature, must the present exposition consist. 

It is amply demonstrated in the first place, 
that the fevers in question are caused by exposure 
to the atmosphere of marshy grounds, or to what 
is here called Malaria; so that, respecting the 
reality of this cause there is no doubt. But 
physicians have been in the habit of asserting 
that they are also caused by heat simply, or by 
heat and moisture, or by cold under the same 
varieties ; or by fatigue, errors or deficiency of 
diet, the passions of the mind, and other causes 
which I need not name, inducing what they term 
debility. 

Now, to pass over the well known maxim in 
philosophy, that superfluous causes ought not to 
be assumed, let us first remark, that the period 
during which these last named or unproved 
causes were assumed, was that period of medical 
and philosophical ignorance in which the very 
existence of the chemical substance called Ma- 
laria was unsuspected, and when, as I showed in 
the last chapter, the effects of marshes in pro- 

H H 2 



468 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



ducing disease were attributed to defective elasti- 
city in the air^ to animalculae^ to heat, putrefac- 
tion, or whatever else there was of vague, fanci- 
ful, or unmeaning, which constituted the medical 
and philosophical language, not reasoning, of 
that day, and which still forms the far better part 
of the whole philosophy of physic. 

Let us remark in the next place, that the un- 
proved causes in question have been equally ap- 
plied by physic, and from the earliest and darkest 
periods, as in the present day, to the explanation 
of numerous other diseases, perhaps of nearly all 
the important ones, and to diseases of the most 
opposite character to those under review. And 
I should not say what is untrue were I to say, 
that these have been used, and still are used most 
commonly, as a mere string of terms, without 
waiting to consider of their meaning or applica- 
tion: that they are a part of that phraseology 
which constitutes what is considered as philoso- 
phy in physic, and which forms, under other 
modes, the far better part also of the ordinary — 
reasoning as it is usually termed, in the several 
branches of morals. 

It is somewhat, in such a case as this, to trace 
the origin and character of opinions, because we 
may thus often shake the structure which we 
cannot directly demolish. Let us next see what 



MALARIA. 



469 



the probabilities are, that these causes do pro- 
duce the supposed effects. 

If in respect to the production of disease, a 
single cause were always sufficient, or always the 
sole agent, there would be no difficulty in proving 
that not one of these is the cause of marsh fevers 
but unfortunately it happens that the state of the 
subject of action is too often implicated in the 
effect, or that two causes or sets of causes must 
concur to its production. These, respectively, 
are the exciting and the predisposing causes of 
physic ; or the real cause, and the opportunity ~ 
afforded for its action : and if there may some- 
times be a difficulty in allotting them, the more 
common event is, that as the latter are commonly 
palpable, and the true cause difficult to discover, 
physic contents itself with what is most easy, and 
thus wanders about among those errors, of which 
the present case is, I doubt not, an example. 

We must therefore try this question in another 
way, and attempt to deduce out of a broad mass 
of facts, that conclusion which could not be de- 
rived from individual and separate ones ; and if 
this can be done, the point is proved, because it 
is thus in reality that even accurate philosophy 
must in most cases arrive at truth. If it can be 
shown that the one cause here assumed as the 
true and sole one, acts as often as it is fully 
called into action, and that the power of the 



470 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



Others is irregular and uncertain, still more that 
there are regular and constant circumstances un- 
der which they never do act, and further, that 
when they seem to act, the real cause is also 
present or probably present, then does it appear 
to me that the point will be proved as far as any 
thing ever can be proved in those sciences which 
do not admit of mathematical demonstration. 

Now it may safely be asserted in the first place, 
hat the several unproved causes in question, 
which I need not again enum.erate, exist at all 
times of the year, and secondly, that they exist 
in all the countries of the world. Or, to be more 
minute, and to divide them into two classes, those 
which belong to man himself, such as fatigue, 
injurious passions, diet, or other causes of debi- 
lity, are found equally distributed, on a broad 
average, throughout mankind, everywhere, in all 
climates, and at all seasons of the year; while 
injurious conditions of temperature, if less ame- 
nable to the same average, occur under rules that 
offer certain averages also, but which are distinct 
from those that regulate the existence of the one, 
and the as yet only proved cause. Malaria. 

Now were the first division of these causes the 
real causes of such fever, it should bear an equal 
or analogous average throughout mankind, 
which, 1 have fully shown, it does not. These 
human causes, as I may call them for the sake of 



MALARIA. 



471 



distinction^ cannot therefore be the causes of such 
fever, because they do not possess the necessary 
philosophical qualities ; and I may therefore dis- 
miss them. 

With respect to the second division, or the 
assumed causes, consisting in temperature, the 
statement of facts must be somewhat longer, be- 
cause in the usual lax language of physic, the 
whole of the circumstances are promiscuously 
enumerated, and without the requisite discrimi- 
nation ; insomuch that were they really causes of 
fever, it would be difficult to see how any person 
should escape ; or rather, the whole world, in 
certain climates, or in all climates, would stand 
on an equal average, or on certain distinct aver- 
ages, with regard to these diseases : which it 
does not. 

To distinguish ; the operations of temperature 
must consist in continuous cold, or that which is 
beneath a low mean heat, to be safely enough 
taken at 40®, or in continuous heat, or that 
which is above a high mean, which may be as 
safely fixed at 65®; or else it must depend on 
transitions from a high to a low temperature, or 
the reverse. The partial operation of cold is not 
worth distinguishing in this case ; and with res- 
pect to moisture, it seems agreed that its influence 
is dependent on its relations to temperature. But 
should it be esteemed a separate cause, it must 



472 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



be distinguished into excess and defect: and 
thus the whole question as to these causes is 
cleared for examination. 

Now, that continuous cold does not produce 
marsh fever, is proved, partly because that does 
not occur in cold climates or in cold seasons ; 
very particularly because it does not happen in 
winter, even in those places where the proved 
cause. Malaria, is present, or where at least it 
would exist if the temperature permitted its pro- 
duction. That continuous heat alone does not 
produce this fever, is proved, because it is not 
generated in the dry or sandy tropical climates, 
where the heat is often more extreme than even 
in those of a diiFerent character. And that neither 
transitions from cold to heat nor from heat to cold 
do alone produce it, is proved^, because the former 
set of transitions occur, as they must, in every 
cold climate, and in some very notedly, on the 
coming on of spring, yet without producing fe- 
vers ; while the reverse case, or the transition 
from heat to cold is, even more notoriously, not 
simply common, but a daily occurrence, in the 
burning sandy deserts, where hot days are fol- 
lowed by cold nights, and where, still, fever is 
not the consequence. 

Thus these causes of fever also may be safely 
elicited out of the enumeration, if reasoning from 
facts is of any value, if there is any case where 



MALARIA. 



473 



the generalizations of pliilosophy are admitted as 
deserving of regard. 

Now, lastly, with respect to moisture, admit- 
ting it as including a separate set of causes, we 
may first, I believe, safely neglect defect of mois- 
ture, otherwise than as it acts in producing cold 
by accelerating evaporation, and as coming there- 
fore under the former case, since it has not been 
supposed a cause of fever. With regard to mois- 
ture in excess, whether we leave out the case or 
not of its producing cold by its conducting 
power, (though I formerly examined that subject 
in treating of the east wind,) I must partly repeat 
here, that if it could produce fever by itself, a fog 
from whatever quarter would be a cause of dis- 
ease, or an equal cause ; that the fogs or clouds 
of elevated or mountainous regions would pro- 
duce fever ; that this would occur equally in all 
moist countries, of whatever temperature; that 
the western Highlands or Cornwall, for example, 
in our own island, would be more subject to fe- 
vers than Norfolk or Lincolnshire ; and that, at 
sea in particular, they should be unusually com- 
mon. Not to examine separately these cases, 
it will be sufficient to say that they are notori- 
ously not the causes of such disease, and that at 
sea, very remarkably, other causes being elicited, 
fevers are almost unknown. How Malaria is 
produced in a ship, I formerly explained. 



474 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



Thus have I gone through the whole of the 
reputed but unproved causes of fevers, or rather 
of remittent fever, since I must shortly proceed 
to a medical discriminating remark on this term: 
and I must think that had I been discussing a 
question in any other branch of philosophy than 
physic, I should have proved my case to the sa- 
tisfaction of every reasoning mind : proved that 
not one of these causes was the real cause, or the 
" exciting cause" of this fever, whatever share 
they may take in operating on the body so as to 
render it capable of being inlluenced by the real 
cause. But I know physic too well to expect 
that I shall produce such conviction ; since against 
what is neither logic nor philosophy, philosophy 
and logic are opposed in vain. 

Let me now attempt to shew whence the fal- 
lacy arises ; while on that I may be brief, since 
it is but a recapitulation of much that has already 
been proved. 

Fevers abound in certain climates, places, and 
seasons, where vegetable decomposition proceeds 
in a rapid or peculiar manner, and they are 
proved to be produced by exposure to the at- 
mosphere of those places, which is concluded 
therefore to involve an unknown gaseous sub- 
stance called Malaria. The causes productive of 
Malaria being demonstrated, such fevers are pro- 
portioned in number and severity to the power of 



MALARIA. 



475 



these causes, increasing as they increase, dimi- 
nishing when they diminish, and when they dis- 
appear, disappearing. Malaria therefore, however 
unknown it may be, possesses all the philosophi- 
cal properties of a cause ; and as I have shown 
that fevers are not produced where it is not pre- 
sent, though all the other presumed causes are 
so, these cannot be Causes. 

The fallacy is plain ; that is, supposing these 
causes to have been really assigned from pre- 
sumed observation, and not the mere phraseology 
which I believe to have been the case. As the 
causes here called human ones must exist every- 
where and at all times, they must be in existence 
where the real cause. Malaria, is in action. The 
same is true respecting heat, injurious vacillations 
of temperature, and moisture : while these, in 
particular, are causes which bring Malaria into 
action or tend to produce it. These therefore are 
either concatenated incidents, or causes of Mala- 
ria, or of its action ; the causes of the true cause, 
not those of the effect. 

I must leave this train of argument to produce 
such impression as may be its fate, while I can- 
not see how it is to be answered : and I need not 
repeat that the circumstances which I have now 
attempted to elicit as real causes, may perhaps 
be allowed to be predisposing ones: actions 
which arc incapable, by themselves, of determin- 



476 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



ing this particular effect, while they aid in the 
production of many others, even of the most op- 
posite nature. 

On these, as predisposing causes, I need not 
here dwell ; the more, that it is peculiarly a me- 
dical suhject, and does not, in strictness, belong 
to the matter in hand. In as far as they may act 
in modifying the character of the diseases pro- 
duced by Malaria, I have already shewn that it is 
very doubtful if they do so act. It is a point 
which, in any view, requires to be investigated, 
and really investigated : since it is quite time that 
physic should cease to assert, and commence to 
prove : that it should re-examine what it has hi- 
therto believed, together with its grounds of 
belief, and not be content, in these days of a bet- 
ter philosophy, with its ancient dogmas ; with 
that which it believes and acts on from habit, not 
from conviction, and with the phraseology which 
it too often mistakes for reasoning. 

In how far the circumstances in question pre- 
dispose to disease at all, is matter for experience 
rather than for reasoning ; since we do not know 
in what thkt predisposing action consists. That 
is, we do not know, truly and physiologically, 
how the cause acts, nor what are its effects. Ge- 
nerally, it seems proved by experience, that if the 
body is in an unusual state of muscular weakness, 
or beneath its average standard of strength, the 



MALARIA. 



477 



facility of acquiring certain diseases, and fevers 
among others^ from application of the exciting 
cause, is increased ; and thus has it been said that 
debility, or causes inducing debility, are predis- 
posing causes. This, however, is but phraseology ; 
it leaves us where we were before : while in the 
case of the predisposing, or presumed predispo- 
sing causes in question, it remains to be shewn 
in what manner many of them produce debility, 
or whether they produce it at all. That many of 
them do not induce sensible muscular debility, is 
certain ; and that this may be present^ from nu- 
merous causes, without nevertheless leading to 
disease, is no less certain. Thus it must be 
feared that we are still in darkness ; compelled 
to rest on certain experienced facts, but unable to 
determine their nature or their action ; and, as far 
as we use these terms, using them without being 
able to assign their meaning, or explain our own. 

To complete this discussion however as to 
purposes of utility, I must repeat briefly what I 
hope I have formerly proved ; that the sources of 
Malaria are far more widely diffused than has 
generally been supposed, that they can often be 
truly proved to have been the causes of fever 
when that has been attributed to fallacious or 
imaginary ones, and that this poison is probably 
always the real cause of the disorders under 
review. 



478 



DISEASES PRODUCED BY 



There rernains vet the medical question. Were 
it not the ultimate and essential one^ I would 
gladly have avoided it, because it is no longer a 
question of reasoning and facts, but of medical 
opinions and fashions. I must be brief in pro- 
portion; and shall be safe in saying, first, with 
physic, that fevers are proved to arise from two 
great causes at least ; Malaria and human con- 
tagion : the latter, whencever arising, enabling the 
sufferer to reproduce a substance productive of 
similar eiFects. And whatever other fevers there 
may be, from other causes, these two great 
classes, are, in numbers, as a hundred, or ten 
hundred, thousand, to one, compared to the rest ; 
while also the fevers from Malaria exceed those 
from contagion ten thousand fold, or far more. 

The question remains. Is there any other 
simple fever, which is not produced by one or 
other of these causes ? It is believed that there 
are many ; to a certain extent, it is proved : but 
it is also notorious, tha.t such third class fevers 
bear a very minute proportion to the rest, and 
what is of infinite importance, that they are of 
little moment as diseases, from their little inju- 
rious properties. The error has been to consider 
the slighter fevers from Malaria as belonging to 
these. 

The final conclusion is therefore the following: 
that when I have, in the preceding investigation 



MALARIA. 



479 



of causes, used the term fever as a substitute for 
the more definite one remittent or marsh fever, I 
have in reahty included the great majority of 
cases which occur in the world ; the very high 
majority, 1 should say: and that, excluding of 
course the contagious fevers, or the second great 
class, as being well understood, the conclusion 
which has been drawn as to The Cause, Malaria, 
in as far as it is a conclusion of utility and not 
of philosophy, (being all to which it pretends,) 
remains valid for those purposes of utility. 

Can it possibly be necessary, once more, to 
say to what all this reasoning tends, as to prac- 
tice or use ? If the great proportion of the fevers 
which occur among mankind, in our own country 
as in others, are fevers from Malaria, if this is 
especially true of those which are serious or se- 
vere, omitting always the fevers from contagion, 
then are we in possession of the cause ; and to 
possess that is the first step towards prevention. 
If further, there have been here truly pointed out 
the places and circumstances which produce 
Malaria, or the causes of that cause, and if all 
these could be avoided or destroyed, then fevers 
would occur no more. And as far as they have 
been pointed out, and can be avoided or destroy- 
ed, fevers must diminish : since, of other diseases, 
the consequences of Malaria, I need not now 
speak. And lastly, if among the fevers now 



480 DISEASES PRODUCED BY MALARIA. 



larger portion, are not of this character, but are 
truly also the fevers of Malaria, then have we 
made a most important step as to the prevention 
of fevers in general, as far as we can diminish or 
controul the action of that poison. And all this 
depends, primarily, on our proving the real cause 
of such fevers, an^i secondarily, on our proving 
the causes of that cause ; this last knowledge 
principally, being that which the present re- 
searches have attempted to investigate. 

I may thus terminate this essay ; or, as it will 
prove to those who desire to seek further, this 
branch of one subject ; which I have unwillingly 
thus separated from the consideration of the dis- 
eases which are its effects. If it is not now as 
apparent as I hope it is, to what useful ends the 
facts which it contains may be directed, these 
will be rendered fully sensible hereafter : while I 
cannot help believing that even what is here 
done, will, in the end, prevent a great mass of 
evil, or of suffering and death ; and that the 
views which are to follow, will also put it into 
the power, not merely of physicians, but even of 
the people, to lighten or to avoid numerous dis- 
orders much misunderstood : and^ essentially, as 
I trust, to diminish the total sum of human 
misery. 




THE END. 



